Hair (musical)
All you want to know about Hair (musical)
| Hair | |
| The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical | |
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| Original Broadway poster | |
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| Music | Galt MacDermot |
| Lyrics | James Rado Gerome Ragni |
| Book | James Rado Gerome Ragni |
| Productions | 1967 Off-Broadway 1968 Broadway 1968 West End 1968 Munich 1969 Sydney Multiple Productions Worldwide 1977 Broadway revival 1979 Film version 1993 West End revival 2004 Broadway concert 2005 West End revival 2008 Central Park revival |
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti–Vietnam War peace movement. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy.[1][2] The musical broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of the "rock musical", utilizing a racially-integrated cast and inviting the audience onstage for a "Be-in" finale.[3]
Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired "Hippies of the Age of Aquarius" fighting against conscription to the Vietnam War and living a bohemian life together in New York City. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and all their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution with their pacifist rebellion against the war and the conservative impulses of their parents and society. Ultimately Claude must decide whether or not to resist the draft, as his friends have done.
After an off-Broadway debut in October 1967 at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and another run in a midtown discothèque space, the show opened on Broadway in April 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances,[4] followed by a successful London production, which ran for 1,997 performances. Numerous productions have been staged around the world since then, and numerous recordings of the musical have been released. Several of the songs from its score became Top 40 hits, and a successful movie adaptation was released in 1979. A Broadway revival is scheduled to open on March 5, 2009.
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History
Hair was conceived by actors James Rado and Gerome Ragni. The two actors met in 1964, when they acted together in the off-Broadway play Hang Down Your Head and Die, and they began writing Hair together in early 1965.[5][6] The main characters of Claude and Berger were autobiographical, Rado's Claude being the pensive romantic and Ragni's Berger the extrovert. Their close relationship, sometimes volatile, is symbolized in the show by the well known ballad "Easy to be Hard". Rado said "We were great friends. It was a passionate kind of relationship that we directed into creativity, into writing, into creating this piece. We put the drama between us on stage."[7] The authors got the idea for the title of the show from a painting titled "Hair" in a Whitney Museum exhibition. The painting was of a comb and a few strands of hair on a blank canvas.[8]
In the Los Angeles Times, Rado described the inspiration for Hair as "a combination of some characters we met in the streets, people we knew and our own imaginations. We knew this group of kids in the East Village who were dropping out and dodging the draft, and there were also lots of articles in the press about how kids were being kicked out of school for growing their hair long, and we incorporated that in the show too."[3] Rado recalled, "There was so much excitement in the streets and the parks and the hippie areas, and we thought if we could transmit this excitement to the stage it would be wonderful.... We hung out with them and went to their Be-Ins [and] let our hair grow."[2] Many cast members (Shelley Plimpton in particular) were recruited right off the street.[3]
Rado and Ragni came from different artistic backgrounds. In college, Rado wrote musical revues and aspired to be a Broadway composer in the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition. He went on to study acting with Lee Strasberg. Ragni, on the other hand, was an active member of The Open Theater group in New York City, one of several groups, mostly Off-off Broadway, that were developing experimental theatre techniques.[9] Ragni would later interest Rado in the modern theatre styles and methods being developed at The Open Theater.[10] In 1966, while the two were developing Hair, Ragni performed in The Open Theater's production of Megan Terry's play, Viet Rock, a story about young men being deployed to the Vietnam War. In addition to the war theme, Viet Rock employed the same improvisational and workshop exercises being used in the experimental theatre scene and later used in the development of Hair.[11][6]
Rado and Ragni brought their ideas for the show to producer Eric Blau who, through common friend Nat Shapiro, connected the two with Canadian composer Galt MacDermot.[12] MacDermot had won a Grammy Award in 1961 for his composition "African Waltz" (recorded by Cannonball Adderley).[13] "We work independently," explained MacDermot regarding the creative process. "I prefer it that way. They hand me the material. I set it to music."[14] MacDermot wrote the first score in three weeks,[7] starting with the songs "I Got Life", "Ain't Got No", "Where Do I Go" and the title song.[3] He first wrote "Aquarius" as an unconventional art piece, but later went back and changed it to an uplifting anthem.[7] MacDermot's lifestyle was in marked contrast to his co-creators: "I had short hair, a wife, and, at that point, four children, and I lived on Staten Island."[2]
Off-Broadway productions
The show was pitched to several Broadway producers and received many rejections. Eventually Joe Papp, who ran the New York Shakespeare Festival, decided he wanted Hair to open the new Public Theater (still under construction) in New York City's Greenwich Village. The production did not go smoothly: "The rehearsal and casting process was confused, the material itself incomprehensible to many of the theater’s staff. The director, Gerald Freedman, the theater's associate artistic director, withdrew in frustration during the final week of rehearsals and offered his resignation. Papp accepted it, and the choreographer Anna Sokolow took over the show.... After a disastrous final dress rehearsal, Papp wired Mr. Freedman in Washington, where he’d fled: 'Please come back.' Mr. Freedman did."[15] Hair premiered off-Broadway on October 17, 1967 and ran for a limited engagement of six weeks. Although the production had a "tepid critical reception", it was popular with audiences.[15]
Chicago businessman Michael Butler was planning a run for the U.S. Senate on an anti-war platform. After seeing an ad for Hair in the New York Times that led him to believe the show was about Native Americans, he watched the Public's production several times and decided to purchase the rights and move it to Broadway.[2] Papp and Butler then moved the show to The Cheetah, a discotheque at 53rd Street and Broadway. It ran there for 45 performances.[3] There was no nudity in either the Public Theater or Cheetah production.[16]
Revision for Broadway
Before the move to Broadway, the creative team hired director Tom O'Horgan. O'Horgan was the authors' first choice to direct the Public Theater production, but he was in Europe at the time.[17] O'Horgan had built a reputation directing experimental theater at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and had used nudity in many of the plays he directed—something that he would eventually integrate into the Broadway production of Hair.[3] Newsweek described O'Horgan's directing style as "...sensual, savage, and thoroughly musical... [he] disintegrates verbal structure and often breaks up and distributes narrative and even character among different actors... He enjoys sensory bombardment."[18]
Hair underwent a massive overhaul between its closing at the Cheetah in January 1968 and its Broadway opening three months later. The Off-Broadway book, already light on plot, was loosened even further, and 13 new songs were added.[19] One song in particular, "Let the Sun Shine In", was added to the Broadway show so the ending would be more uplifting.[7] In rehearsals, O'Horgan used techniques passed down by Viola Spolin and Paul Sills of improvisational "games" and role playing theories that encouraged freedom and spontaneity. Many of these improvizations were incorporated into the Broadway script.[20]
Papp declined to pursue a Broadway production, and so Butler produced the show himself. For a time it seemed that Butler would be unable to secure a Broadway theater, as the Shuberts, Nederlanders and other theater owners deemed the material too controversial. However, he pulled some political strings through family connections, and convinced theater owner David Cogan to make the Biltmore Theater available.[21]
Early productions
Broadway
Hair opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre on April 29, 1968. The production was directed by Tom O'Horgan and choreographed by Julie Arenal, with set design by Robin Wagner, costume design by Nancy Potts, and lighting design by Jules Fisher.
The original New York "tribe" (i.e., cast) included authors Rado and Ragni, who played the lead roles of Claude and Berger, respectively, and Lynn Kellogg as Sheila, Lamont Washington as Hud, Sally Eaton as Jeanie, Shelley Plimpton as Crissy, Melba Moore as Dionne, Steve Curry as Woof, Ronnie Dyson (who sang "Aquarius"), Paul Jabara and Diane Keaton (who would later play Sheila).[4] Among the performers who appeared in Hair during its original Broadway run were Ben Vereen, Keith Carradine, Barry McGuire, Ted Lange, Kenny Seymour (of Little Anthony and The Imperials), Joe Butler (of the Lovin' Spoonful), Peppy Castro (of the Blues Magoos), Robin McNamara, Heather MacRae (daughter of Gordon MacRae), Eddie Rambeau and Kim Milford.[4]
Early on the Hair team became embroiled in a lawsuit with the organizers of the Tony Awards. After assuring producer Michael Butler that commencing previews by April 3 was sufficient to warrant consideration by the New York Theatre League for the 1968 Tonys, the League later ruled Hair ineligible, moving the cutoff date to March 19. The producers brought suit[22] but were unable to force the League to reconsider.[23] At the 1969 Tonys, Hair was nominated for Best Musical and Best Director but lost out to 1776 in both categories.[24] The production closed after a four year run of 1,750 performances, on July 1, 1972.[4]
Early regional productions
The West Coast version played at the Aquarius Theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles beginning about six months after the Broadway opening and running for an unprecedented two years. The Los Angeles tribe included Rado, Ragni, Robert Rothman, Ben Vereen (who replaced Ragni), Red Shepard, Ted Neeley (who replaced Rado), Meat Loaf, Gloria Jones, Táta Vega, Jobriath, Jennifer Warnes (Warren) and Dobie Gray.[25]
There were soon nine simultaneous productions in U.S. cities, followed by national tours.[25][26] Among the performers in these were Joe Mantegna and André DeShields (Chicago),[27] David Lasley, David Patrick Kelly and Shaun Murphy (Detroit),[28] Arnold McCuller (tour),[29] and Philip Michael Thomas (San Francisco).[30]
The same creative team from Broadway lent their efforts to Hair in Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, as the Broadway staging served as a rough template for these and other early regional productions. One notable addition to the team in Los Angeles was Tom Smothers who served as co-producer.[31] Regional casts were mostly made up of local actors, with the exception of some Broadway cast members who reprised their roles in other cities.[32] O'Horgan or the authors sometimes took new ideas and improvisations from a regional show and brought them back to New York, such as when live chickens were tossed onto the stage in Los Angeles.[32]
It was rare for so many productions to run simultaneously during an initial Broadway run. Producer Michael Butler, who had declared that Hair is "the strongest anti-war statement ever written", said the reason that he opened so many productions was to influence public opinion against the Vietnam War and end it as soon as possible.[33]
Original West End production
Hair opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on September 27, 1968 with the same creative team as Broadway. As was the case in other early productions, the London show had a sprinkling of local allusions and other minor departures from the Broadway version.[34] The original London tribe included Sonja Kristina, Paul Nicholas, Richard O'Brien, Melba Moore, Elaine Paige, Paul Korda, Marsha Hunt, Floella Benjamin, Alex Harvey and Tim Curry. This was Curry's first full-time theatrical acting role, where he met future Rocky Horror Show collaborator O'Brien.[35] Hair's engagement in London surpassed the Broadway production, running for 1,997 performances[34] until its closure was forced by the roof collapsing in July 1973.[36]
Early international productions
The job of leading the foreign language productions of Hair was given to Bertrand Castelli, Butler's partner and executive producer of the Broadway show.[37] Castelli was a writer/producer who traveled in Paris art circles and rubbed elbows with Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. Butler described him as a "crazy showman... the guy with the business suit and beads".[38] Castelli made the decision to do the show in the local language of each country at a time Broadway shows were always done in English.[37] The translations were very close to the original script, and the same Broadway stagings were used. Each script contained various local references such as street names and the names or depictions of local politicians and celebrities. Castelli produced and sometimes directed companies in France, Germany, Mexico and other countries.[37]
A German production, directed by Castelli,[37] opened in 1968 in Munich;[39] the tribe included Donna Summer and Liz Mitchell (of Boney M). A successful Parisian production of Hair opened on June 1, 1969.[40] The Australian production of Hair premiered in Sydney on June 6, 1969,[41] playing for two years, followed by an Australian tour. It was produced by Harry M. Miller and directed by Jim Sharman. The Australian production is notable as the stage debut of popular Australian vocalist Marcia Hines. The Sydney tribe also included Sharon Redd, Reg Livermore, and John Waters.
A notable production was in the former Yugoslavia (Belgrade), the first Hair to be produced in a communist country.[42] Directed by local female producer-director Mira Trailovic[43] and attended by Marshal Tito, the Belgrade production was a favorite of authors Rado and Ragni, with Ragni declaring "there's no middle class prejudices here". Local references added to the script included barbs aimed at Mao Ze-dong as well as Albania, Yugoslavia's traditional rival.[37]
Other early productions were staged in Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Finland, Italy, Israel, Japan, Denmark, Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. By 1970, nineteen productions had been staged outside of North America.[26]
Synopsis
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- Act I
Claude, the nominal leader of the "tribe", sits center stage as the tribe mingles with the audience. Tribe members Sheila, a New York University student who is a determined political activist, and Berger, an irreverent free spirit, cut a lock of Claude's hair and burn it in a receptacle. After the tribe converges in slow-motion toward the stage, through the audience, they begin their celebration as children of the Age of Aquarius ("Aquarius"). Berger removes his trousers to reveal a loincloth. Interacting with the audience, he introduces himself as a "psychedelic teddy bear" and reveals that he is "looking for my Donna" ("Donna").
The tribe recites a list of pharmaceuticals, legal and illegal ("Hashish"). Woof, a gentle soul, extols several sexual practices ("Sodomy") and says, "I grow things." He loves plants, his family and the audience, telling the audience, "We are all one." Hud, a militant African-American, is carried in upside down on a pole. He declares himself "president of the United States of love" ("Colored Spade"). In a fake English accent, Claude says that he is "the most beautiful beast in the forest" from "Manchester, England". A tribe member reminds him that he's really from Flushing, New York. Hud, Woof and Berger declare what color they are ("I'm Black"), while Claude says that he's "invisible". The tribe recites a list of things they lack ("Ain't Got No"). Four African-American tribe members recite street signs in symbolic sequence ("Dead End").
Sheila is carried onstage ("I Believe in Love") and leads the tribe in a protest chant. The tribe reprises "Ain't Got No (Grass)". Jeanie, an eccentric young woman, appears wearing a gas mask, satirizing pollution ("Air"). She is pregnant and in love with Claude. Although she wishes it was Claude's baby, she was "knocked up by some crazy speed freak". The tribe link together LBJ (President Lyndon B. Johnson), FBI (the Federal Bureau of Investigation), CIA (the Central Intelligence Agency) and LSD ("Initials"). Six members of the tribe appear dressed as Claude's parents, berating him for his various transgressions—he doesn't have a job, and he collects "mountains of paper" clippings and notes. They say that they will not give him any more money, and "the army'll make a man out of you". In defiance, Claude leads the tribe in celebrating their vitality ("I Got Life").
After handing out imaginary pills to the tribe members, saying the pills are for high profile people such as Richard Nixon, the Pope and "Alabama Wallace", Berger relates how he was expelled from high school ("Goin' Down"). Claude returns from his draft board physical, which he passed. He pretends to burn his Vietnam War draft card, which Berger reveals as a library card. Claude agonizes about what to do about being drafted.
Two tribe members dressed as tourists come down the aisle to ask the tribe why they have such long hair. In answer, Claude and Berger lead the tribe in explaining the significance of their "Hair". The tourist lady states that kids should "be free, no guilt" and should "do whatever you want, just so long as you don't hurt anyone." She observes that long hair is natural, like the "elegant plumage" of male birds ("My Conviction"). She opens her coat to reveal that she's a man in drag. As the couple leaves, the tribe calls her Margaret Mead.
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Sheila gives Berger a yellow shirt. He goofs around and ends up tearing it in two. Sheila voices her distress that Berger seems to care more about the "bleeding crowd" than about her ("Easy to be Hard"). Jeanie summarizes everyone's romantic entanglements: "I'm hung up on Claude, Sheila's hung up on Berger, Berger is hung up everywhere. Claude is hung up on a cross over Sheila and Berger." The tribe runs out to the audience with fliers inviting them to a Be-In. Berger, Woof and another tribe member pay satiric tribute to the American flag as they fold it ("Don't Put it Down"). After young and innocent Crissy describes "Frank Mills", a boy she's looking for, the tribe participates in the "Be-In". The men of the tribe burn their draft cards. Claude puts his card in the fire, then changes his mind and pulls it out. He asks, "where is the something, where is the someone, that tells me why I live and die?" ("Where Do I Go"). The tribe emerges naked, intoning "beads, flowers, freedom, happiness."
- Act II
Four tribe members have the "Electric Blues". After a black-out, the tribe enters worshiping "Oh Great God of Power." Claude returns from the induction center, and tribe members act out an imagined conversation from Claude's draft interview, with Hud saying "the draft is white people sending black people to make war on the yellow people to defend the land they stole from the red people". Claude gives Woof a Mick Jagger poster, and Woof, excited about the gift, says he's in love with Jagger. Three white women of the tribe tell why they like "Black Boys" ("black boys are delicious..."), and three black women of the tribe, dressed like The Supremes, explain why they like "White Boys" ("white boys are so pretty...").
Berger gives a joint to Claude that is laced with a hallucinogen. Claude starts to trip as the tribe acts out his visions ("Walking in Space"). He hallucinates that he is skydiving from a plane into the jungles of Vietnam. Berger appears as General George Washington and is told to retreat because of an Indian attack. The Indians shoot all of Washington's men. General Ulysses S. Grant appears and begins a roll call: Abraham Lincoln (played by a black female tribe member), John Wilkes Booth, Calvin Coolidge, Clark Gable, Scarlett O'Hara, Aretha Franklin, Colonel George Custer. Claude Bukowski is called in the roll call, but Clark Gable says "he couldn't make it". They all dance a minuet until three African witch doctors kill them—all except for Abraham Lincoln who says, "I'm one of you". Lincoln, after the three Africans sing his praises, recites an alternate version of the Gettysburg Address ("Abie Baby"). Booth shoots Lincoln, but Lincoln says to him, "I ain't dying for no white man".
As the visions continue, four Buddhist monks enter. One monk pours a can of gasoline over another monk, who is set afire and runs off screaming. Three Catholic nuns strangle the three Buddhist monks. Three astronauts shoot the nuns with ray guns. Three Chinese people stab the astronauts with knives. Three Native Americans kill the Chinese with bows and tomahawks. Three green berets kill the Native Americans with machine guns and then kill each other. A Sergeant and two parents appear holding up a suit on a hanger. The parents talk to the suit as if it is their son and they are very proud of him. The bodies rise and play like children. The play escalates to violence until they are all dead again. They rise again ("Three Five Zero Zero") and, at the end of the trip sequence, two tribe members sing, over the dead bodies, a melody set to a Shakespeare lyric about the nobility of Man ("What A Piece of Work Is Man").
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After the trip, Claude says "I can't take this moment to moment living on the streets.... I know what I want to be... invisible". As they "look at the moon" Sheila and the others enjoy a light moment ("Good Morning, Starshine"). The tribe pays tribute to an old mattress ("The Bed"). Claude is left alone with his doubts. He leaves as the tribe enters wrapped in blankets in the midst of a snow storm. They start a protest chant and then wonder where Claude has gone. Berger calls out "Claude! Claude!" Claude enters dressed in a military uniform, his hair short, but they don't see him because he is an invisible spirit. Claude says, "like it or not, they got me."
Claude and everyone sing "Flesh Failures". The tribe moves in front of Claude as Sheila and Dionne take up the lyric. The whole tribe launches into "Let the Sun Shine In", and as they exit, they reveal Claude lying down center stage on a black cloth. During the curtain call, the tribe reprises "Let the Sun Shine In" and brings audience members up on stage to dance.
(Note: This plot summary is based on the original Broadway script. The script has varied in subsequent productions.)
Themes
Hair explores many of the themes of the hippie movement of the '60s. Theatre writer Scott Miller explained why the hippie movement embraced these themes:
[T]he youth of America, especially those on college campuses, started protesting all the things that they saw wrong with America: racism, environmental destruction, poverty, sexism and sexual repression, violence at home and the war in Vietnam, depersonalization from new technologies, and corruption in politics.... Contrary to popular opinion, the hippies had great respect for America and believed that they were the true patriots, the only ones who genuinely wanted to save our country and make it the best it could be once again.... [Long] hair was the hippies' flag—their... symbol not only of rebellion but also of new possibilities, a symbol of the rejection of discrimination and restrictive gender roles (a philosophy celebrated in the song "My Conviction"). It symbolized equality between men and women. In addition... the hippies' chosen clothing also made statements. Drab work clothes (jeans, work shirts, pea coats) were a rejection of materialism. Clothing from other cultures, particularly the Third World and native Americans, represented their awareness of the global community and their rejection of U.S. imperialism and selfishness. Simple cotton dresses and other natural fabrics were a rejection of synthetics, a return to natural things and simpler times. Some hippies wore old World War II or Civil War jackets as way of co-opting the symbols of war into their newfound philosophy of nonviolence.[44]
Race
Extending the precedents set by Show Boat (1927) and Porgy and Bess (1935), Hair opened the Broadway musical to feature racially-integrated casts (where the roles for Blacks were not slaves or maids),[45] and several songs and scenes from the show address racial issues.[44] "Colored Spade", the song that introduces the lead character of Hud, a militant black male, is a long list of racial slurs ("jungle bunny... little black sambo") topped off with the declaration that Hud is the "president of the United States of love".[46] At the end of his song he tells the tribe that the "boogie man" will get them and yells "boo!!" as the tribe pretends to be frightened.[47] "Dead End" is sung by black tribe members and is a list of street signs that symbolize frustration and alienation ("keep out... mad dog... hands off"). "Black Boys/White Boys" addresses miscegenation,[48] laws against which the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down in 1967.[49] One of the tribe's protest chants is "What do we think is really great? To bomb, lynch and segregate!"[47]
"Abie Baby" occurs during the Act 2 "trip" sequence when four African witch doctors, who have just killed various American historical, cultural and fictional characters, sing the praises of Abraham Lincoln, a black female tribe member whom they decide not to kill.[50] The first part of the song contains racial stereotype language that one would hear black characters in old movies say, like "Yes, I's finished ... pluckin' y'all's chickens, fryin' mothers oats and grease", and "I's free now thanks to y'all Master Lincoln". Lincoln then recites a modernized version of the Gettysburg Address while a white female tribe member polishes Lincoln's shoes with her blond hair.[47]
Drugs
Various illegal drugs are taken by the characters during the course of the show, most notably a hallucinogen during the trip sequence.[44] The song "Walking in Space" starts off the sequence, and the lyrics celebrate the experience declaring "in this dive we rediscover sensation... our eyes are open, wide" and "how dare they try to end this beauty". Echoing this sentiment, in the song "Donna", Berger sings that "I'm evolving through the drugs that you put down."[51] At another point, Jeanie smokes a marijuana cigarette and says that anyone who thinks "pot" is bad is "full of shit".[47]
Generally, the tribe celebrates the hippie drugs that are hallucinogenic or "mind expanding" in nature such as LSD and marijuana,[52] while other drugs such as speed and depressants are not met with the same approval. The latter is best summarized by Jeanie who after revealing that she is pregnant by a "speed freak" says that "methedrine is a bad scene".[47] The song "Hashish" provides a list of pharmaceuticals, both illegal and legal, including cocaine, alcohol, LSD, cough syrup, opium and Thorazine, which is used as an antipsychotic.[52]
Nudity and sexual freedom
Miller writes that "nudity was a big part of the hippie culture, both as a rejection of the sexual repression of their parents and also as a statement about naturalism, spirituality, honesty, openness, and freedom. The naked body was beautiful, something to be celebrated and appreciated, not scorned and hidden. They saw their bodies and their sexuality as gifts, not as 'dirty' things."[44]
In the song "Sodomy", Woof exhorts everyone to "join the holy orgy Kama Sutra".[53] Toward the end of the Act 2, the tribe members reveal their free love tendencies when they barter back and forth about who will sleep with whom that night. Hair has a strong racial element in the various sexual themes. Female white tribe members sing about how they are sexually attracted to "Black Boys" and black female tribe sing about their similar feelings for "White Boys". Adding to this sentiment, one of the protest chants they shout is "Black, white, yellow, red. Copulate in a king-sized bed."[47]
In addition, as Clive Barnes wrote in his original New York Times review of Hair, "homosexuality is not frowned upon."[54] Three characters in particular—Claude, Berger and Woof—make reference, sometimes vague, to bisexual experiences and bisexuality. Woof says he has a crush on Mick Jagger, and a three-way embrace between Claude, Berger and Sheila turns into a Claude-Berger kiss. Also, Berger, Sheila and Claude live together in an East Village apartment in an arrangement that Jeanie describes as "highly unusual".[47]
Pacifism and environmentalism
Pacifism pervades the book and score. The theme of opposition to the war is unified by the plot thread that progresses consistently through the book—Claude's moral dilemma over whether to burn his draft card.[44] This theme is explored throughout the extended trip sequence in Act 2. The lyrics to "Three-Five-Zero-Zero", which is sung during that sequence, evoke the horrors of war ("ripped open by metal explosion") and point a finger at the Vietnam War directly when the tribe sing "256 Vietcong captured".[55] The song is based on Allen Ginsberg's 1966 poem, "Wichita Vortex Sutra". In the poem, General Maxwell Taylor proudly reports to the press the number of enemy soldiers killed in one month, repeating it digit by digit, for effect: "Three-Five-Zero-Zero." The song begins with images of death and dying and turns into a manic dance number, ironically celebrating the killing in an echo of Maxwell's glee at reporting the enemy casualties.[44] The song also includes the repeated phrase "prisoners in niggertown it's a dirty little war".[47]
"Don't Put It Down" pokes fun at patriotism, suggesting that some people are literally "crazy" for the American flag.[56] "Be In (Hare Krishna)" celebrates the peace movement and events like the San Francisco and Central Park Be-Ins.[57] The tribe also at various points in the show chant protest slogans that were prevalent at the time. These include "What do we want? Peace — When do we want it? Now!" and "Do not enter the induction center".[47] Even the upbeat song, "Let the Sun Shine In", is a call to action, to reject the darkness of war and change the world for the better.[44]
Hair also aims its satire at the pollution caused by our civilization.[44] Before the song "Air", Jeanie appears from a trap door in the stage wearing a gas mask. She then sings, "Welcome sulfur dioxide. Hello carbon monoxide. The air... is everywhere".[58] In the song Jeanie suggests that pollution will eventually kill her, "vapor and fume at the stone of my tomb, breathing like a sullen perfume".[47] Also in a comic, pro-green vein, when Woof introduces himself, he reveals his affection for nature by explaining that he "grows things" like "beets, and corn ... and sweet peas" and that he "loves the flowers and the fuzz and the trees".[47]
Religion and astrology
Religion appears both overtly and symbolically throughout the piece, and it is often made the brunt of a joke.[44] When Berger sings of looking for "Donna", the line is intentionally blurred as to whether he's searching out a woman named Donna or the Madonna.[59] During "Sodomy", a hymn-like paean to all that is "dirty" about sex, the cast struck evocative religious positions: the Pietà and Christ on the cross.[59] Before the song, Woof recites a modified rosary. At another point when Berger gives imaginary pills to various famous figures, he offers "a pill for the Pope".[47] In "Going Down", after being kicked out of school, Berger compares himself to Lucifer: "Just like the angel that fell / Banished forever to hell / Today have I been expelled / From high school heaven."[60]
Claude becomes a classic Christ figure at various points in the script.[61] In Act I, Claude enters, saying, "I am the Son of God. I shall vanish and be forgotten," then gives benediction to the tribe and the audience. Claude suffers from indecision, and, in his Gethsemane at the end of Act I, he asks "Where Do I Go?". There are various textual allusions to Claude being on a cross, and, in the end, he is chosen to give his life for the others.[61] Coincidentally, Ted Neeley who played Claude in Los Angeles, later portrayed the title role in Jesus Christ Superstar, both as an understudy on Broadway[62] and in the original film.[63] Similarly, Berger can be seen as a John the Baptist figure, preparing the way for Claude.[44]
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Excerpt from "Aquarius" Harmony and understanding |
Songs like "Good Morning, Starshine" and "Aquarius" reflect the '60s cultural interest in astrological and cosmic concepts.[64] "Aquarius" was the result of Rado's research into his own astrological sign.[65] The company's astrologer, Maria Crummere, was consulted when deciding whom to cast,[66] with Sheila usually played by a Libra or Capricorn. Berger was seen as having strong Leonine tendencies,[65] although Ragni, the original Berger, was a Virgo (born on September 11).[67]
Crummere was also consulted when deciding when the show would open on Broadway and in other cities.[68] In the 1971 Broadway Playbill, it was reported that she chose April 29, 1968 for the Broadway premiere. "The 29th was auspicious... because the moon was high, indicating that people would attend in masses. The position of the 'history makers' (Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter) in the 10th house made the show unique, powerful and a money-maker. And the fact that Neptune was on the ascendancy foretold that Hair would develop a reputation involving sex."[69]
In Mexico, where the astrologer did not pick the opening date, the show was closed down by the government after one night.[68] She was not pleased with the date of the Boston opening, saying, "Jupiter will be in opposition to naughty Saturn, and the show opens the very day of the sun's eclipse. Terrible." Unfortunately, there was no safe time in the near future.[70]
Literary themes and symbolism
Hair makes many references to Shakespeare's plays, especially Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, and, at times, takes lyrical material directly from Shakespeare.[44] For example, the lyrics to the song "What a Piece of Work Is Man" is from Hamlet (II: scene 2) and portions of "Flesh Failures" ("the rest is silence") are Hamlet's final lines. In "Flesh Failures/Let The Sun Shine In", the lyrics "Eyes, look your last!/ Arms, take your last embrace! And lips, O you/ The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss" are from Romeo and Juliet (V: iii, 111–14).[71] According to Miller, the Romeo suicide imagery drives home the point that, with our complicity in war, we are killing ourselves.[44]
Symbolically, the sub-plot of Claude's indecision, leading to his repeated failure to burn his draft card, has been interpreted as a version of Hamlet, "the melancholy hippie", whose inability to take decisive action causes his demise.[72] The symbolism is carried into the last scene, where Claude appears as a ghostly spirit among his friends wearing an army uniform in an ironic echo of an earlier scene, where he says, "I know what I want to be... invisible". According to Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, "Both [Hair and Hamlet] center on idealistic brilliant men as they struggle to find their place in a world marred by war, violence, and venal politics. They see both the luminous possibilities and the harshest realities of being human. In the end, unable to effectively combat the evil around them, they tragically succumb."[73]
The song "Three-Five-Zero-Zero" contains portions of Ginsberg's poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra".[74] In the psychedelic drug trip sequence, Scarlett O'Hara, from Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, and activist African-American poet LeRoi Jones are portrayed.[47]
Dramatics
In his introduction to the published script of Viet Rock, Richard Schechner says, "performance, action, and event are the key terms of our theatre—and these terms are not literary."[75] In the 1950s, Off-off Broadway theaters began experimenting with non-traditional theater roles, blurring the lines between playwright, director, and actor. The playwright's job was not just to put words on a page, but to create a theatrical experience based around a central idea. By 1967, theaters such as the Living Theatre, La MaMa E.T.C., and The Open Theatre were actively devising plays from improvisational scenes crafted in the rehearsal space, rather than following a traditional script.[76]
Viet Rock and Hair
Megan Terry's Viet Rock was created this way.[76] Scenes in Viet Rock were connected in "prelogical ways": a scene could be built from a tangent from the scene before, it could be connected psychologically, or it could be in counterpoint to the previous scene.[76] Actors were asked to switch roles in the middle of a show, and frequently in mid-scene. In her stage directions for a Senate hearing scene in Viet Rock, Terry wrote, "The actors should take turns being senators and witnesses; the transformations should be abrupt and total. When the actor is finished with one character he becomes another, or just an actor."[76]
Hair was designed in much the same way. Tom O'Horgan, the show's Broadway director, was intimately involved in the experimental theatre movement.[44] In the transition to Broadway, O'Horgan and the writers rearranged scenes to increase the experimental aspects of the show.[76] Hair asks its actors to assume several different characters throughout the course of the piece, and, as in Claude's psychedelic trip in Act 2, sometimes during the same scene. Both Hair and Viet Rock include rock music, borrowed heavily from mass media, and frequently break down the invisible "fourth wall" to interact with the audience. For example, in the opening number, the tribe mingles with audience members, and at the end of the show, the audience is invited on stage.[76]
The tribe
The characters in the show are referred to as the "tribe".[44] The many references to Native Americans throughout the script are part of the anti-civilization, anti-consumerism, naturalism focus of the hippie movement and of Hair. The cast even chooses a tribal name: As Miller explains, "in each production of Hair... the cast chooses a tribe name, generally naming themselves after a native American tribe. The practice is not just cosmetic... the entire cast must work together, must like each other, and often within the show, must work as a single organism. All the sense of family, of belonging, of responsibility and loyalty inherent in the word "tribe" has to be felt by the cast."[44] To enhance this feeling, O'Horgan put the cast through sensitivity exercises based on trust, touching, listening and intensive examination which broke down barriers between the cast and crew and encouraged bonding. These exercises were based on techniques developed at the Esalen Institute and Polish Lab Theater.[20] The idea of Claude, Berger and Sheila living together is another facet of the '60s concept of tribe.[77]
Production design
In the original Broadway production, the stage was completely open, with no curtain and the fly area and grid exposed to the audience. The proscenium arch was outlined with climb-ready scaffolding. Wagner's spare set was painted in shades of grey with street graffiti stenciled on the stage. The stage was raked, and a tower of abstract scaffolding upstage at the rear merged a Native American totem pole and a modern sculpture of a crucifix-shaped tree. This scaffolding was decorated with found objects that the cast had gathered from the streets of New York. These included a life-size papier-mâché bus driver, the head of Jesus, and a neon marquee of the Waverly movie theater in Greenwich Village.[78] Potts' costumes were based on hippie street clothes, made more theatrical with enhanced color and texture. Some of these included mixed parts of military uniforms, bell bottom jeans with Ukrainian embroidery, tie dye t-shirts and a red white and blue fringed coat.[78] Early productions were primarily reproductions of this basic design.
Nude scene
"Much has been written about that scene... most of it silly," wrote Gene Lees in High Fidelity.[79] The scene was inspired by two men who took off their clothes to antagonize the police during an informal anti-war gathering.[7] The stage, during "Where Do I Go?", was covered in a giant scrim, beneath which those choosing to participate in the scene removed their clothes. At the musical cue, "they [stood] naked and motionless, their bodies bathed in Fisher's light projection of floral patterns. They chant[ed] of 'beads, flowers, freedom, and happiness.'"[80] It lasted only twenty seconds.[81] Indeed, the scene happened so quickly and was so dimly lit that it prompted Jack Benny, during the interval at a London preview, to quip "Did you happen to notice if any of them were Jewish?"[82]
The nudity was optional for the performers. The French cast was "the nudest of the foreign groups". In some early performances, the Germans played their scene behind a big sheet labeled "CENSORED". The London cast "found the nudity the hardest to achieve."[83] Original Broadway cast member Natalie Mosco said, "I was dead set against the nude scene at first, but I remembered my acting teacher having said that part of acting is being private in public. So I did it."[84] According to Melba Moore, "It doesn't mean anything except what you want it to mean. We put so much value on clothing our bodies, but it doesn't mean a damn thing. It's like so much else people get uptight about. Sure, I was scared the first time. I thought 'Everybody's looking at me. I've got no protection.' Now I'm still kind of surprised that I'm standin' there naked, but I'm not embarrassed, the audience is."[85] Donna Summer, who was in the German production, said that "it was not meant to be sexual in any way. We stood naked to comment on the fact that society makes more of nudity than killing. We worry more about someone walking around half dressed than somebody who's walking around shooting people."[7] Rado said that "being naked in front of an audience, you're bearing your soul. Not only the soul but the whole body was being exposed. It was very apt, very honest and almost necessary."[7]
Music
While at Cape Town University in South Africa,[44] MacDermot studied the music of the Bantu tribe, and he incorporated this African influence into the score of Hair.[9] MacDermot said that he listened to "what they called quaylas... very characteristic beat, very similar to rock. Much deeper though.... Hair is very African—a lot of [the] rhythms, not the tunes so much."[9] Quaylas stress beats on unexpected syllables, and the influence can be heard in songs like "What a Piece of Work Is Man" and "Ain't Got No Grass".[86] MacDermot said, "My idea was to make a total funk show. They said they wanted rock & roll—but to me that translated to 'funk.'"[87] That funk is evident throughout the score, notably in songs like "Colored Spade" and "Walking in Space".[87]
The music in Hair runs the gamut of rock. From the rockabilly sensibilities of "Don't Put it Down" to the folk rock rhythms of "Frank Mills" and "What a Piece of Work is Man". "Easy to be Hard" is pure rhythm and blues, and protest rock anthems abound: "Ain't Got No" and "The Flesh Failures". The acid rock of "Walking in Space" and "Aquarius" are balanced by the mainstream pop of "Good Morning Starshine."[88] Scott Miller ties the music of Hair to the hippies' political themes: "The hippies... were determined to create art of the people and their chosen art form, rock/folk music was by its definition, populist. ...the hippies' music was often very angry, its anger directed at those who would prostitute the Constitution, who would sell America out, who would betray what America stood for; in other words, directed at their parents and the government."[44] Theatre historian John Kenrick wrote,
The same hard rock sound that had conquered the world of popular music made its way to the musical stage with two simultaneous hits – Your Own Thing [and] Hair.... This explosion of revolutionary proclamations, profanity and hard rock shook the musical theatre to its roots.... Most people in the theatre business were unwilling to look on Hair as anything more than a noisy accident. Tony voters tried to ignore Hair's importance, shutting it out from any honors. However, some now insisted it was time for a change. New York Times critic Clive Barnes gushed that Hair was "the first Broadway musical in some time to have the authentic voice of today rather than the day before yesterday."[89]
The music did not resonate with everyone. Leonard Bernstein remarked "the songs are just laundry lists"[90] and walked out of the production.[91] Richard Rogers could only hear the beat and called it "one-third music".[90] John Fogerty said, "Hair is such a watered down version of what is really going on that I can’t get behind it at all."[92] Gene Lees, writing for High Fidelity, claimed that John Lennon found it "dull", and he wrote, "I do not know any musician who thinks it's good."[79]
Songs
The score had many more songs than were typical of Broadway shows of the day.[25] Most Broadway shows had about six to ten songs per act; Hair's total is in the thirties.[93] This list reflects the most common Broadway lineup.[94]
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The show was under almost eternal re-write. Thirteen songs were added between the production at the Public Theater and Broadway, including "I Believe in Love".[94] "The Climax" and "Dead End" were cut between the productions, and "Exanaplanetooch" and "You Are Standing on My Bed" were present in previews but cut before Broadway. The Shakespearean speech "What a piece of work is a man" was originally spoken by Claude and musicalized by MacDermot for Broadway, and "Hashish" was formed from an early speech of Berger's.[94] More recent productions include "Hello There", "Sheila Franklin", "Oh Great God of Power", "Dead End",[94] and "Hippie Life"—a song originally written for the film that Rado included in several productions in Europe in the mid-nineties.[95]
Recordings
The first recording of Hair was made in 1967 featuring the off-Broadway cast. The original 1968 Broadway cast recording (RCA LSO-1150) received a Grammy Award in 1968 for Best Score from an Original Cast Show Album[26] and sold nearly 3 million copies in the U.S. by December 1969.[68] The New York Times noted in 2007 that "The cast album of Hair was... a must-have for the middle classes. Its exotic orange-and-green cover art imprinted itself instantly and indelibly on the psyche.... [It] became a pop-rock classic that, like all good pop, has an appeal that transcends particular tastes for genre or period.[15] The 1993 London revival cast album contains new music that has been incorporated into the standard rental version.[44]
RCA also released DisinHAIRited (RCA LSO-1163), an album of songs that had been written for the show, but saw varying amounts of stage time. Some of the songs were cut between the Public and Broadway, some had been left off the original cast album due to space (and, as a result, appeared on this recording with alternate lyrics), and a few were never performed onstage.[94]
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The cast albums database lists over fifty recordings of Hair, many by the foreign casts.[96]
Songs from Hair have been recorded by numerous artists,[97] including Shirley Bassey, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli.[98] The Fifth Dimension released a medley of the two songs "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" in 1969, the year after the show opened on Broadway, which won Record of the Year[99] and topped the charts for six weeks. Some other songs from the show became top 10 hits that year. The Cowsills's recording of the title song "Hair" climbed to #2 on the Billboard charts,[100] "Good Morning Starshine" as sung by Oliver reached #3,[101] and Three Dog Night's version of "Easy to Be Hard" went to #4.[102] Another notable version of a song from Hair at the time was Nina Simone's medley "Ain't Got No — I Got Life" on her 1968 album 'Nuff Said!, which reached the top 5 on the British charts.[103] "Good Morning Starshine" was sung on a Sesame Street episode in 1969 by cast member Bob McGrath.[104] In 1970, ASCAP announced that "Aquarius" was played more frequently on U.S. radio and television than any other song that year.[105]
Productions in England, Germany, France, Sweden, Japan, Israel, Holland, Australia and elsewhere released cast albums, and over 1,000 vocal and/or instrumental performances of individual songs from Hair.[26] Such broad attention was paid to the recordings of Hair that, after an unprecedented bidding war, ABC Records was willing to pay a record amount for MacDermot's next Broadway adaptation Two Gentlemen of Verona.[106]
Critical reception
Reception to Hair upon its Broadway premiere was, with exceptions, overwhelmingly positive. Clive Barnes wrote in the New York Times: "What is so likable about Hair, that tribal rock musical that last night completed its trek from downtown, via a discotheque, and landed, positively panting with love and smelling of sweat and flowers, at the Biltmore Theater? I think it is simply that it is so likable. So new, so fresh, and so unassuming, even in its pretensions."[54] John J. O'Connor of The Wall Street Journal said the show was "exuberantly defiant and the production explodes into every nook and cranny of the Biltmore Theater".[107] Richard Watts Jr. of the New York Post wrote that "it has a surprising if perhaps unintentional charm, its high spirits are contagious, and its young zestfulness makes it difficult to resist."[108]
Television reviews were even more enthusiastic. Allan Jeffreys of ABC said the actors were "the most talented hippies you'll ever see... directed in a wonderfully wild fashion by Tom O'Horgan."[109] Leonard Probst of NBC said "Hair is the only new concept in musicals on Broadway in years and it's more fun than any other this season".[110] John Wingate of WOR TV praised MacDermot's "dynamic score" that "blasts and soars",[111] and Len Harris of CBS said "I've finally found the best musical of the Broadway season... it's that sloppy, vulgar, terrific tribal love rock musical Hair."[112]
A reviewer from Variety, on the other hand, called the show "loony" and "without a story, form, music, dancing, beauty or artistry.... It's impossible to tell whether [the cast has] talent. Maybe talent is irrelevant in this new kind of show business."[113] Reviews in the news weeklies were mixed; Jack Kroll in Newsweek wrote, "There is no denying the sheer kinetic drive of this new Hair... there is something hard, grabby, slightly corrupt about O'Horgan's virtuosity, like Busby Berkeley gone bitchy."[114] But a reviewer from Time wrote that although the show "thrums with vitality [it is] crippled by being a bookless musical and, like a boneless fish, it drifts when it should swim."[115]
Reviews were mixed when Hair opened in London. Irving Wardle in The Times wrote, "Its honesty and passion give it the quality of a true theatrical celebration—the joyous sound of a group of people telling the world exactly what they feel." B. A. Young in The Financial Times agreed that Hair was "not only a wildly enjoyable evening, but a thoroughly moral one." However, W. A. Darlington, the 78-year-old critic of The Daily Telegraph, in his final review before retiring after 48 years, wrote that he had "tried hard", but found the evening "a complete bore—noisy, ugly and quite desperately funny."[116]
By 1970, Hair was a huge financial success. Billboard reported that the various productions of the show were raking in almost $1 million a day and that royalties were collected for 300 different recordings of the show's songs. Hair also helped launch recording careers for performers Bert Sommers, Ronnie Dyson and Melba Moore, among others.[117] Later assessments continue to disagree over the quality of the show. According to theatre writer Scott Miller, "some people can't see past the appearance of chaos and randomness to the brilliant construction and sophisticated imagery underneath."[44] Miller notes, "Not only did many of the lyrics not rhyme, but many of the songs didn't really have endings, just a slowing down and stopping, so the audience didn't know when to applaud.... The show rejected every convention of Broadway, of traditional theatre in general, and of the American musical in specific. And it was brilliant."[44]
Social change
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Excerpts from "Hair" I let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees, Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it, my hair.... They'll be ga ga at the Go Go when they see me in my toga, |
Hair challenged many of the norms held by Western society in 1968. The name itself was a reaction to the restrictions of civilization and consumerism and a preference for naturalism.[118] Rado remembers that long hair "was a visible form of awareness in the consciousness expansion. The longer the hair got, the more expansive the mind was. Long hair was shocking, and it was a revolutionary act to grow long hair. It was kind of a flag, really."[8]
The musical caused controversy when it was first staged, and the Act I finale which included male and female nudity drew considerable publicity, as it was the first time a Broadway show had seen totally naked actors and actresses.[16] The show was also charged with the desecration of the American flag and the use of obscene language.[119][2] These controversies, in addition to the anti–Vietnam War theme, attracted occasional threats and acts of violence during the show's early years and became the basis for legal actions both when the show opened in other cities and on tour. Two cases eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Legal challenges and violent reactions
When on tour, Hair met with resistance from various groups across the United States. In South Bend, Indiana, the Morris Civic Auditorium refused booking,[120] and in Evansville, Indiana, the production was picketed by several church groups.[121] In the Indianapolis, Indiana, the authorities insisted that the cast wear body stockings during the nude scene, and the local theater canceled the performances.[120] Productions were frequently confronted with the closure of theaters by the Fire Marshall, as in Gladewater, Texas.[122] Chattanooga's 1972 refusal to allow the play to be shown at the city-owned Memorial Auditorium[123][124] was later found by the U.S. Supreme Court to be an unlawful prior restraint.