Hair (musical)
| Hair | |
|---|---|
| File:Hairposter.gif Original Broadway Poster | |
| Music | Galt MacDermot |
| Lyrics | James Rado, Gerome Ragni |
| Book | James Rado, Gerome Ragni |
Hair, subtitled The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, is a musical about hippies and was a significant part of the drug, music and peace-love culture of the 1960s. It's score spawned several top 20 hits.
History
Hair was written by James Rado and Gerome Ragni (book and lyrics), and Galt MacDermot (music). Directed by Tom O'Horgan, it premiered off-Broadway, with much fanfare, as the inaugural performance of the Public Theater, on 17 October 1967. It then ran for 45 performances at The Cheetah, an old discotheque at 45th Street and Broadway, before moving to the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway on 29 April 1968 where it stayed for 1,873 performances. The West Coast version played at the Aquarius Theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
A fateful Mexican production of Hair opened in 1968 for one performance. The show was shut down by the government, and the cast members were forced to leave Mexico to avoid arrest.[1]
Hair opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on 27 September 1968, continuing for 1,998 performances until closure was forced by the roof collapsing in July 1973. Hair also went on to stage productions across the world and continues to be performed today.
The Australian production of Hair premiered in Sydney on 4 May 1969, playing for two years in Sydney, followed by an Australian tour. It was produced by Harry M. Miller and directed by Jim Sharman, who went on to direct the acclaimed Australian premiere production of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1972 and who directed both the original London production of The Rocky Horror Show and the subsequent film version, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The Australian production is also notable as the stage debut of popular Australian vocalist Marcia Hines, who came to Australia to join the production and went on to a very successful solo career in the 1970s, becoming one of Australia's most popular and successful vocalists.
Hair came tenth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals" (wherein "Nation" refers to the United Kingdom). [2]
Film
A movie version of Hair was directed by Miloš Forman and released in 1979 with a cast including Treat Williams, Beverly D'Angelo, and John Savage.
Revivals
Few major revivals of Hair followed until the early 1990s.
A hit production opened in Australia in 1992 with a new sound for the old songs.
A short-lived revival opened at the Old Vic in London in 1993, starring John Barrowman and Paul Hipp, and featured a revised libretto.
The next large revival was in 2001, in Vienna that was radically updated.
James Rado approved an updating of the musical's script to place it in the context of the 2003 Gulf War instead of the Vietnam War. The new show opened at the Gate Theatre, London in September 2005. [3]
Amateur and college productions have continued worldwide ever since the original production, including one premiering at the University of Virginia on April 19, 2007. DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana performed a completely student-operated production from May 3-6, 2007.
One particular show of note was the Spring 2006 production out of California State University, Northridge. Performing the original script, the Waabi Kiizis tribe (Native American for "see the sun") was able to connect Hair to modern political and social issues. The show was viewed and praised by Michael Butler (the show's original producer) as the "best school production this century". [clarification needed] [citation needed]
Hair will be performed by the "Koya Huye Band of the Tamalpais Nation" (Koya Huye is Miwok for to sing, to let the sun in) at the Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre (a.k.a."The Mountain Theatre"), Mt. Tamalpais State Park, Mill Valley, California through May - June 2007. [4] The Mountain Play has been serving the San Francisco Bay Area community since 1913.
Political and cultural significance
The show challenged many of the norms held by Western society at the time.
It caused controversy when it was first staged, and much publicity was provoked by the Act I finale which included male and female nudity. This became a legal issue when the show left New York on tour. Stage nudity was acceptable in New York at that time but was unknown elsewhere in the U.S. The show was also charged with the desecration of the American flag and the use of obscene language. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case (Southeastern Promotions, LTD v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546) established that the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee's refusal to allow the play to be shown at the city-owned Memorial Auditorium was an unlawful prior restraint. The show also effectively marked the end of stage censorship in the United Kingdom.
Hair makes many references to Shakespeare plays, especially Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet (for example, the lyrics to the song "What a Piece of Work Is Man" is from Hamlet (II: scene 2); and 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,111-114)). This may be a result of the playwrights' involvement with the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater.[dubious – discuss] Many of these references did not appear in the Broadway version of the play, but were part of other productions, especially London.
Plot
The musical follows "The Tribe", a group of politically active friends, long-haired "Hippies of the Age of Aquarius" fighting against conscription to the Vietnam War and living a bohemian life together in an apartment in New York City. Among them are Claude, the nominal group leader; Berger an irreverent free spirit; Sheila, a New York University (NYU) film student who is in love with both of them, and who is the most focused political activist of the group; Woof a bisexual gentle soul; Jeanie, who is in love with Claude but pregnant by another man; Hud, a Black Panther; Crissy, Dionne, among others, who are struggling 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.
When the men of The Tribe receive a draft notice, they conduct a burning ceremony at a Be-In and destroy their draft cards, except for Claude, whose sense of responsibility restrains him. Ultimately, he goes to fight in Vietnam, as each member of The Tribe reluctantly releases him (Sheila's "good-bye" includes the gift of sex). Symbolically, the sub-plot of Claude's repeated failure to burn his draft card can be interpreted as a hippie take on Hamlet, whose inability to take decisive action causes his demise, as in the last scene, he appears as a ghostly spirit among his friends wearing an army uniform, in an ironic echo of an earlier scene, where he says, "If I was invisible, I could do anything!"
Players
- The original New York "tribe" (i.e., cast) included James Rado, Gerome Ragni, Shelley Plimpton, Kim Milford, Melba Moore, Paul Jabara, Sally Eaton, and Diane Keaton. Keaton did not appear nude in the musical's first act finale.
- The Los Angeles tribe included Robert Rothman, James Rado, Ben Vereen, Gerome Ragni, Ted Neeley, Dolores Hall, Meat Loaf, Jobriath Salisbury, Jennifer Warren (Warnes), Dobie Gray, Susan Morse, Abigail Haines, Willie Weatherly, Tata Vega, and Jerry Combs.
- The original London tribe included Sonja Kristina, Paul Nicholas, Richard O'Brien, Melba Moore, Elaine Paige, Paul Korda, Tim Curry, Marsha Hunt, and Alex Harvey.
- The original Sydney tribe included Marcia Hines, Sharon Redd, Reg Livermore, Keith Glass and John Waters. The Melbourne tribe included Chuck McKinney and Michael Caton.
- The original Berlin tribe included Donna Summer and Liz Mitchell ( Boney M ).
- A special benefit performance of the show was performed at the New Amsterdam Theater in New York City on September 20, 2004. The tribe included: Shoshana Bean, JM J. Bullock, Liz Callaway, Gavin Creel, Harvey Fierstein, Ana Gasteyer, Annie Golden, Jennifer Hudson, Jai Rodriguez, RuPaul, Michael McKean, Laura Benanti, Adam Pascal, and others.
- The off-Broadway production also included Kenny Seymour of Little Anthony and The Imperials
Songlists
Original Off-Broadway Songlist
|
ACT ONE
|
ACT TWO
|
Initial Broadway Songlist
|
ACT ONE
|
ACT TWO
|
Broadway Songlist
|
ACT ONE
|
ACT TWO
|
(*) denotes songs eventually dropped from the Broadway show.
(**) denotes songs added in the 1995 revision.
London 1993 Songs
|
ACT ONE
|
ACT TWO
|
Albums
|
|
|
|
Cultural influence
- In an episode of The Simpsons, The Springfield Files, the song "Good Morning Starshine" is sung by the townspeople, Leonard Nimoy, Chewbacca, Dana Scully, Michiel Renty and Fox Mulder. In another episode the song "Hair" is heard when Marge Simpson is losing her hair. When a gang of yoyoists come to Springfield elementary they play Aquarius.
- The 1970 album DisinHAIRited contains earlier songs cut from the 1968 Broadway production. Similarly, the album Fresh Hair contains songs cut from the original London production, as well as leftover tracks from the cast album.
- Love. It Comes in All Colors, a 1970 US national advertising campaign used a song from Hair, "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In".
- As of 2005, four songs from Hair had been featured in The Simpsons: "Aquarius", "Good Morning Starshine", the title song and "Easy to be Hard".
- "Aquarius" was used in a Ford car advertising campaign in the last few years. "Let the Sunshine In" was used in a 2007 television advertising campaign for Bic Soleil razors.
- "Good Morning Starshine" as sung by Oliver reached #3 in July, 1969. The song also appeared on Sesame Street episodes and albums, sung by cast member Bob McGrath.
- In the 2005 movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the character Willy Wonka welcomes the children with lyrics from the song "Good Morning Starshine".
- The final scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin features the cast dancing to "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In"
- The cast of Head of the Class performs the musical during the series.
- The song "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" was number 33 on the 2004 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs.
- The title card of a Rocko's Modern Life episode, "Hair Licked" is a parody of the original Hair poster art, and during that, a "Rocko-ized" version of "Aquarius" is playing.
- In an episode of Seinfeld, Elaine's roommate gets Lyme Disease while performing Hair outdoors in Danbury,Connecticut.
- Singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone has a European hit with the medley of "Ain't Got No — I Got Life" on Nuff Said (1968).
- In the comedy short "Pizza" by Stella, Michael Showalter attempts to hang himself while the song plays, and his friends eat pizza and associate with "loose women."
- In the 2007 movie "Bobby", the song "initials" is played over a scene where three men get stoned.
- University of Wisconsin Madison May 2007 Graduation Commencement Ceremonies, "Age of Aquarius" Performed by André De Shields
See also
- Hair, the movie
References
- Clive Barnes. "Theatre: 'Hair'--It's Fresh and Frank." The New York Times. April 30, 1968. 40.
- Barbara Lee Horn. "The Age of Hair: Evolution and the Impact of Broadway's First Rock Musical" (New York, 1991)
External links
- The official Hair the musical website by James Rado, one of the co-authors
- Website on Hair from Michael Butler, the musical's original producer
- Official Hair blog from Michael Butler, the musical's original producer
- Fansite with a detailed history of the show
- Hair at the Internet Broadway Database