An amazing production of Hair, hard to call it a revival, with many different or differently arranged songs. Sounds like Jimi Hendrix was the music director. The production owes much to Spring Awakenings in its rhythms and feelings. What could have been an amusement park version of the 60s was alive, capturing the feeling of what times were and/or should have been. Berger's treatment of Shelia was typical of the male left. Very erotic and sensual, or lewd or crude depending on taste. Was the love among men completely atypical of the time? Were the feelings more subjugated then? The friendship between Berger and Claude was callous at times, beautiful at other times, particularly as they rolled around together just before Claude conforms.
The second act hallucination/bad trip that shows Claude's future in Vietnam was very powerful, with Grant and Lincoln and Booth and Custer and Washington and Clark Gable and Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and the execution of the captured Viet Cong and parachuting into the jungle and much more.
There were a lot of cast changes, including all three leads. Claude and Sheila were very good, Berger was not the dominant presence that he should have been, Gail thought he was nervous and trying too hard. Heard later that changes had been announced, but don't know if what we saw is the new permanent line-up or an interim cast. Found out later that an open casting call was scheduled in the theatre the day after we saw the show.
High points: Black Boys/White Boys, What a Piece of Work Is Man, the reprise of Ain't Got No as Claude/Jesus dies. The last scene before Let the Sun Shine In, with Claude, in uniform, stretched out dead, with snow falling.
After 40 years, it's hard not to look at the tribe and know that there's no future for their vision of love and peace.
Set was great, industrial brick warehouse type building with wooden scaffolding, an old truck, the band on stage above center and right. Wonderful lighting, a rainbow, and a blackout.
Seats: orchestra, row O, center, next to texting woman
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