Big, bold, and brassy are what you get at this memorable “Hair” onstage now through July 7 at Signature Theatre.
Rocking outasight! And that’s what they do nonstop. Drugs, sex, rock and roll…but wait! There’s more, much more!
This bunch of energetic hippies sing a song, song a sing, song, song, song, sing their story in this first ever “rock musical” for the stage with the never-old, the familiar “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” “Good Morning Starshine,” “Easy to be Hard,” and many more.
The youngsters preach that “peace can guide the planets and love will steer the stars.” When this classic broke ground in the late 60s all they wanted was “harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding…golden living dreams of visions… and the mind’s true liberation,” not too different from now.
With the cast only a few feet away and parading up and down the aisle, various audience members are invited to join the fun, and one woman sitting on the front row when we were there, rocked, swayed and clapped the night away, almost standing up to kick her heels and become part of the show.
“Hair” is all about free love and free everything (“unless someone gets hurt”). “I don’t want to be a dentist or a lawyer or a movie star,” Claude (Jordan Dobson) says wistfully to no one in particular: “I just want a lot of money.”
The tribe conveys the message, rebelling against the Vietnam tragedy, the draft, institutional power and religion, middle-class values, discrimination, the uncompromising future which lies ahead.
America’s youth worked to make their voices heard and they succeeded! “Especially people who care about strangers, who say they care about social injustice.”
Claude’s roommates, Berger (Noah Israel) and Sheila (Alex De Bard) join him to resist societal pressures while Claude debates whether to flee the draft or accept his call to the military.
In one of the rare funny scenes, Woof (Nolan Montgomery) falls in love with a poster of Mick Jagger (“but I’m not gay or anything”), the Mick Jagger whose name still runs across political headlines today, more than 50 years later. (See Florida and Ron DeSantis.)
Closing the first act is the memorable fast nude scene. At Signature the actors disrobe in the shadows and, although you know it’s coming, it happens in a flash, making it easy to miss the good parts if your eyes aren’t fast enough.
Wikipedia says the authors wrote the nude scene in their script after they witnessed an anti-war demonstration in Central Park, where men stripped naked to show their independence and defiance of all things “normal.” The singer Donna Summer, who was in the German production, said that “it was not meant to be sexual. … We stood naked to comment on the fact that society makes more of nudity than killing.” Yep.
It was controversial then; now, not so much.
The knockout set (by Paige Hathaway) is reminiscent of those rooms where we used to party hearty in college in the 60s while the period costumes (by Kathleen Geldard) show little difference from those of today.
Angie Benson is the music director and keyboardist who leads eight musicians behind the scenes who, at times, almost overcome the vocalists.
Matthew Gardiner, the director, says in his notes that “Hair” “broke all the rules of musical theater convention” and presents “so much to reflect upon and learn about our present” including the upheaval in society in comparison to today.
“How can people be so heartless? How can people be so cruel? Easy to be hard, easy to be cold, how can people have no feelings? How can they ignore their friends?” This group won’t.
Also in the cast are Amanda Lee, Solomon Parker III (also the dance captain), Nora Palka, Caroline Graham, Jamie Goodson, Keenan McCarter, Greg Twomey, Savannah Blackwell, Patrick Leonardo Casimi, Ethan Turbyville and Teralin Elise Jones.
Book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado (both graduates of Catholic University). Music by Galt MacDermot.
Other members of the creative team are Jason Lyons, lighting; Eric Norris, sound; Patrick W. Lord, video; Anne Nesmith, wigs; Sinai Tabak, orchestrations.
Kerry Epstein was production stage manager and Julia Singer was assistant stage manager; Ashleigh King, choreographer; Casey Kaleba, fight choreographer and Chelsea Pace, intimacy consultant.
For all those children, like mine, who question their parents about what college life was like in the 60s, here’s a chance to see part of it in full living, singing color! And for the boomers, time to relive a carefree (well, kinda) fun, outrageous time. I need a friend.
Tickets start at $40, available at sigtheatre.org or calling the box office at 703-820-9771. Duration, 2.5 hrs with one intermission.
Signature Theatre is in Shirlington with plenty of free parking and many restaurants within walking distance, located at 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, VA.
