Friday night-Aug. 20, a bunch of us went to a “be-in” or a “love-in” I suppose…my friend Peter was able to score some tickets for us to one of the hottest tickets in New York currently: The New York Shakespeare Festival’s summer production of HAIR, performed in Central Park at the Delacorte Theatre outside under the stars (or rainclouds as it was). My friend Diane, who accompanied us, exclaimed “oh my Gosh…everybody at work wants to know how you got tickets! It’s really a hot ticket!” Why she knows people from Rich and Famous Tours (www.richandfamoustours.com !)
If you've never seen a show in Central Park...it's definitely "an event." A wonderful setting under the stars (or clouds as it was Friday). I've seen Meryl Streep and many others for FREE in Central Park...one of the last, good, free things in New York City!
At first it appeared as if the evening would be rained out…we were armed with umbrellas and towels…just in case…but after a 20 minute “rain delay” the show proceeded with only occasional light drizzle that popped up during several segments, but not enough to cancel the show. It was such a literal love-in…I kept running into old friends in the audience like Nina Fineman from years ago when she and I were both pages in Rockefeller Center…Nina at NBC Studios and me at Radio City Music Hall next door.
Nina and I begin kibbitzing…she tells me her little sis Carol (once an assistant in P.R. for the Public Theatre, is now working as a film and event producer with our old pal and co-worker, the successful producer Scott Sanders…my gosh, what a small world. Also my old friend Jack was sitting in our exact same row…Jack and I have been trying to get together for lunch for YEARS and there he is..just a few seats away. Jack works for Superman (well, D.C. Comics actually) and he is harder to get in touch with than a super hero. Diane (a HAIR veteran and former flower child from the 1960’s)was thrilled to see old friends of hers sitting just in front of us. My friend Zora was there and, as it turns out, was a veteran of the original Broadway production of HAIR! Who knew!
How is the production? The performances were “fabulous” and that is an understatement—such a wonderful time-capsule peek into the world of hippies, flower-children and 1960’s anti-Vietnam War protests, today relevant because of anti-war political preaching (doesn't every generation have a war they hated?). Everything old is new again it appears. Much of the audience of liberal New Yorkers (obvious when any anti-establishment comments in the show were met by so much foot-stomping and applause it was hard to hear the show). The cast was huge…28 I think…which is big for Broadway or even Off-Broadway.
The lead role of Berger was played by a spot-on Will Swenson, who I saw earlier this year in 110 IN THE SHADE on Broadway with Audra McDonald in a completely different type of role. The lead role of Claude (the hippie who has been drafted and ultimately ends up dying in Vietnam) was played with a sweet innocence and naïve quality by Christopher J. Hanke (a veteran of Broadway’s RENT)... filling in for Jonathan Groff who opened the show but rumors were flying he left to make a movie. There were 20 or 30 songs…mostly forgettable, but the hit songs are still there…Good Morning Starshine, Age of Aquarius, Let the Sun Shine In as well as the title song.
The kids in the cast had great voices and performed with ultimate exuberance which is essential because HAIR is not really a good show. It’s a landmark musical for many reasons…its songs, its themes of anti-establishment values, Vietnam War, sexuality, nudity and flower children were ground-breaking in the 1960s, especially for mainstream Broadway audiences used to MY FAIR LADY, OKLAHOMA and HELLO DOLLY (These audiences were probably shocked at performers in a Broadway show hurling abuse at their suburban way of life, but they still celebrated the show’s dated virtues of flower-power).
But today we can see HAIR for what it is…and for what it is NOT. It's not really a good, cohesive show: It’s a series of disjointed skits aimed at attacking and shocking its mainstream 1968 establishment audience. That’s why it’s essential that HAIR is done with really good Broadway talent so it can rise above its flimsy book and dated flower-power political message. HAIR is a total period piece designed to push buttons but quite adorable in its naive tone: Make Love, Not War. Nice idea if the world were a different kinda place. I kept thinking of Winston Churchill's famous paraphrased comment of Voltaire: If you're not liberal when you're young, you have no heart. But if you're not conservative by 40--you have no brain!
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