Hair Broadway, Samuel J Friedman Theatre, 1968
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Hair was not a brand-new show when it opened at the Biltmore Theater on this night in 1968. It began its run 40 blocks to the south, in the East Village, as the inaugural production of Joseph Papp’s Public Theater. Despite mediocre reviews, Hair was a big enough hit with audiences during its six-week run at the Public to win financial backing for a proposed move to Broadway. While this kind of move would later become more common, it was exceedingly rare for a musical at the time, and it was a particularly bold move for a musical with a nontraditional score.
Subsequent productions
After a black-out, the tribe enters worshiping in an attempt to summon Claude ("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 is excited about the gift, as he has said he's hung up on 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 ..."). Every now and then, a piece of American performance is so memorable that it both redefines its medium and reframes the culture at large.
‘Hair’: The Broadway musical through the years
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 does not 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", presenting him with his draft notice. In defiance, Claude leads the tribe in celebrating their vitality ("I Got Life"). The tribe recites a list of pharmaceuticals, legal and illegal ("Hashish").
Awards and nominations
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"). Interacting with the audience, he introduces himself as a "psychedelic teddy bear" and reveals that he is "looking for my Donna" ("Donna"). In Stellar Blade, EVE can choose between 13 unique hairstyles, each available in four colors that often range from black, brown, blonde, blue, red, or even green.
The woman 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"). 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. Three tribe members dress up as principals in Hitler mustaches and swastika arm bands, mocking the American education system. He pretends to burn his Vietnam War draft card, which Berger reveals as a library card. Previous audio and Web versions of this story mistakenly identified James Rado as Hair's composer. Rado wrote the show's book and lyrics with Jerome Ragni; its music was composed by Galt MacDermot.
Hair, after all, was the first rock musical to make a play for mainstream success on the Great White Way. But the novelty of the show didn’t stop with its music or references to sex and drugs. Hair also featured a much-talked-about scene at the end of its first act in which the cast appeared completely nude on the dimly lit stage. True, as the fame of this self-labeled “tribal love-rock musical” spread after its successful transfer to Broadway in 1968, it trailed a heady perfume of notoriety.
Yet when I went to see the director Diane Paulus’s 2008 revival of the show in Central Park (which subsequently transferred to Broadway), I was surprised to discover how moved I was by it, and not just for nostalgic reasons. It was the tribal aspect of the “tribal love-rock” equation that got to me all those years later — its sense of vulnerable people banding together on the threshold of adulthood, trying to postpone their entry into the scary world that their elders had created. What little story the show did have, after all, pivoted on whether one of its characters would be drafted into a conflict that made the United States as rancorously divided as it has ever been in my lifetime — until now. In fact, the cast album of “Hair” was one that, as young teenagers, my friends and I were allowed to play — and dance to — in our living rooms and even on church retreats (as long as we skipped the track called “Sodomy”).
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.[99] Potts' costumes were based on hippie street clothes, made more theatrical with enhanced color and texture.
Broadway
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The divisions then often included estrangements of teenagers from their parents. So some young people wound up forming alternative clans in which you chose your own family. It’s a design for living that has been translated into both the murderous darkness of the 1960s-era Charles Manson cult and into the anodyne sitcom blitheness of the 1990s television series “Friends” or the messier 2010s-era “Girls.” The clan members of “Hair” got high together and slept together, yes, but they also nurtured, consoled and entertained one another. And for much of the show, it’s that reciprocally supportive camaraderie that makes the musical feel so alive.
Some of these included mixed parts of military uniforms, bell bottom jeans with Ukrainian embroidery, tie dyed T-shirts and a red white and blue fringed coat.[99] Early productions were primarily reproductions of this basic design. Thirteen songs were added between the production at the Public Theater and Broadway, including "I Believe in Love".[115] "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. Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the "Age of Aquarius" living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution, with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifist principles and risking his life. And like “Hellzapoppin,” “Hair” seemed destined to fade into that bright oblivion reserved for period novelties like Monkees albums and troll dolls.
Hud, Woof and Berger declare what color they are ("I'm Black"), while Claude says that he's "invisible". Four African-American tribe members recite street signs in symbolic sequence ("Dead End"). Claude 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.
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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. 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"). He leaves as the tribe enters wrapped in blankets in the midst of a snow storm.
Here, an appraisal of one such enduring and heavily referenced work — a youth-inflected 1967 musical that captured the popular (and political) consciousness — alongside a gathering of the stars who not only made it but were made by it, too. Sheila is carried onstage ("I Believe in Love") and leads the tribe in a protest chant. Jeanie, an eccentric young woman, appears wearing a gas mask, satirizing pollution ("Air").
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