[Mb-hair] London Gate Theatre adaptation of Hair (SPOILERS!)

[Sean Courtney]

First of all, welcome to the list, Toby!

Quoting Toby:

>> Hud is now a woman - with a spectacular voice and buckets of personality.

I think the only requisite for Hud is that Hud be black -- I know that
UNC-Chapel Hill had a female Hud in 1996, mainly I think due to a shortage of
male black actors.

>> Some of the most heavy-handed stuff comes during several music-less spoken
>> comedy sequences featuring caricatures of George Bush and Condoleeza Rice in
>> a gameshow environment. These are the worst scenes and, though a few cheap
>> laughs are raised, they seemed to drag by comparison to the song and dance
>> sections.

Hmmm...sounds like something stolen from Jay Leno!

>> In retrospect, I'm fighting to some degree against my love of the show as a
>> whole and the movie in particular. But I think that classics like Hair (yes,
>> Hair has acquired that status, and the sold-out nature of the Gate run
>> confirms that) should be open to re-interpretation and I applaud the Gate
>> for giving it a go. My reservations are due to the fact that I don't think
>> some of the interpretations make a lot of sense; some are inconsistent, some
>> are irrelevant, some are just too obvious for their own good.

You know...I cringed when I read other reviews of that production, but the way
you describe it, it sounds like the rewrites and updates were EXTREMELY
well-done with lots of thought, kind of like what it might be had Jim 
and Gerry
written it today. However, if I go to a Hair production, I expect it to be the
one we all know and love. I'd be disappointed if I were surprised with an
updated version. BUT -- if I knew in advance it were updated, I'd be
interested.

-- 
dauber at banana-and-louie.org
AIM: ddaauubbeerr
blog: http://scattered-frog.blogspot.com