[Mb-hair] Updating HAIR

[richard haase]

god bless rj mac
IT WAS WILD AND UNORTHODOX
SO WAS THE SHOW HAIR
THATS IT IN A NUTSHELL
AND AGAIN IT MAY HAVE BEEN HIS PARTICULAR ADAPTATION THAT DIDNT WORK
NOT THE NOTION OF AN UPDATED ADAPTATION IN GENERAL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "RJ Mac" <nycrjmac at yahoo.com>
To: <mb-hair at islandlists.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 7:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Mb-hair] Updating HAIR


> I was getting more and more curious about this alleged
> train-wreck so I checked the web and found the
> following article from the London Guardian.  (link and
> article copy follows after my op-ed commentary)
>
> I'm now a bit more sympathetic with the director,
> despite that his concept apparrently did not succeed.
> It's absolutely wild and unorthodox. So was (is) the
> show Hair.  ESTABLISHED works can handle attempted
> innovations.  Any live performance, any time, has to
> have its own life.  The text is the roadmap, the
> formula to resurrect the event. Sometimes the ideas
> work, sometimes no.
>
> I've seen plenty of directorially improved
> re-conceptions of established works.  (Did anyone see
> the recent Broadway "Streetcar Named Desire"?  Oy.)
> So it goes up, it goes down, the loss is the
> producer's, and the show continues unscathed.  Truly
> powerful works manage to get their message over
> however re-dressed or distorted.
>
> As well, opinions and reactions vary wildly.  For
> example, a production of a different particular
> musical, whose directorial re-imagining was highly
> complimented by someone on this list, had me in fits
> of exasperation.  Eh.  The show opened and closed, the
> property goes on unscathed.
>
> (Caveat: this opinion applies to Established works
> only.)
>
>
>
>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1562210,00.html#article_continue
>
> HAIR RESTORER
> Simon Garfield
> Sunday September 4, 2005
> The Observer
>
> When Daniel Kramer contacted the original writers
> about a new version of the Sixties musical Hair, they
> were doubtful. Then they heard his ideas for making
> this classic contemporary
>
> Hair is famous for many things and the most famous of
> all is that charming young people take their clothes
> off in it. Thirty-eight years after it was first
> performed, a new and dramatically updated version is
> about to open at the Gate Theatre in London's Notting
> Hill, and just about the only thing to have survived
> from the original is the prospect of still being able
> to ogle smooth flesh in the name of freedom and art.
> The good news is that the Gate is a very small
> theatre.
>
> Article continues
> A few weeks ago, I received an email from the Gate's
> artistic director, Thea Sharrock, and it contained
> crushing news. I was to be allowed into rehearsals for
> 45 minutes one afternoon at 2.30, but 'around 3.15
> they will be working on a nudity scene, so obviously
> you will then be politely asked to leave'. I attended,
> despite this setback, and was greeted with a scene
> that anyone in their right mind would pay quite a lot
> not to see - a large group of people singing 'Hare
> Krishna, Hare Rama'. Fortunately, this spiritual be-in
> was interrupted by a drug-addled love-in, before a
> conga line took over the stage, and then the
> curly-headed hero, Claude, entered and sang: 'Where do
> I go, where do I go?'
>
> Then Claude went around what was supposed to be Times
> Square, and the cast put out the candles that they had
> only just lit a minute before. Then it was the
> interval. The cast asked questions about exactly where
> they should be when a particular thing happened. They
> were answered by Daniel Kramer, the director, whose
> bright idea to bring Hair back to the stage this was.
>
> Kramer, a 26-year-old American with a directing style
> both camp and muscular, employed witty advice to help
> his actors understand what he wanted. 'If you're
> standing with your back to the audience, please make
> it an interesting shape,' he said. 'Unless you're
> Charlie Chaplin, the human back is really boring to
> look at.' He knew the musical from every angle, even
> though some lines had only been revised the night
> before.
>
> Part of his challenge was making the play work in such
> a small space; including the band, there will be 20
> people on stage, and only 65 in the audience. Another
> problem was making sense of a show that contained
> songs indelibly linked with the late Sixties -
> 'Aquarius', 'Good Morning Starshine', 'Let the
> Sunshine in' - and a show that is best remembered for
> glorious political naivety and the excessive use of
> the loon pant. Kramer had slightly less of a dilemma
> finding modern parallels for an unpopular war,
> potential environmental disaster and young people
> trying to find themselves in a troubled world.
>
> These days, it all seems a little quaint. 'The
> American tribal love-rock musical' rebelled against
> everything that was bad in the West: the war in
> Vietnam, the generational divide, organised religion,
> the treatment of native Americans, racism, pollution.
> It proposed an alternative society based, as far as
> anyone could tell, on fellatio, sodomy, cunnilingus,
> masturbation and LSD. In London, Paris and Chicago,
> people were taking to the streets to protest, but in
> Manhattan a group of hairies was asking theatregoers
> to pay to hear them sing about how their leaders were
> taking them to hell.
>
> The songs were the plot and the script seemed like an
> afterthought: young man in a big city feels alienated
> in changing society, is torn this way and that by
> conservative parents and beautiful but way-out new
> friends, has girlfriend problems and is drafted for
> Vietnam. Some of the script was great. Abraham Lincoln
> was the 'emanci-muthafuckin-pator of the slaves'. The
> draft was 'white people sending black people to fight
> yellow people to protect the country they stole from
> red people'. But some of the script was not great:
> 'Oh,' says Claude to his parents early on, 'I've got
> to get me out of this flat and start Liverpoolin' it
> up with me mates... out on to the Technicolor streets
> with me daffodils. Me pretty little daffodils.'
>
> But the big thing about Hair was that no one had
> really seen a bunch of hippie types organise
> themselves so well before. This was because the cast -
> or tribe as they liked to call themselves - weren't
> actually all dropouts from some odoriferous stone age
> but a group of highly talented, energetic people right
> there punctually in the name of entertainment.
>
> Despite this, it still wasn't like My Fair Lady. When
> Hair opened in London, those audience members who had
> barely been able to prevent themselves from dancing in
> the aisles during the show got up at the end to dance
> on stage with the tribe. Princess Anne did it. 'The
> 18-year-old princess broke into a hip-swinging
> routine, flinging her arms in abandon,' the New York
> Times reported. She was wearing a navy-blue
> trousersuit and white blouse, which remained tucked in
> despite her abandon.
>
> Seeing Hair was like seeing an early punk rock band:
> if it hit you, it hit you and, to a certain extent, it
> would define you; the next morning the world looked a
> little different. Ruby Wax recently told Saga magazine
> that she 'slept with everybody' in the cast: 'Well
> actually, I got the gay guys and ended up with the
> lead guitarist. I couldn't sing, so it was the only
> way I could get in it.'
>
> Hair was born four times in the late Sixties. It began
> a short run as the first play at Joseph Papp's
> Anspacher Public Theatre in October 1967 and soon
> transferred to the Cheetah discotheque on Broadway.
> Here it was not a hit, the audiences couldn't yet see
> the point of dancing after a play and there were
> conflicts between the writers, the producer, the cast
> and the director about what they were supposed to be
> doing. As the producer later explained: 'The director
> wasn't a hippie; he was a beatnik.'
>
> The creative team persevered. James Rado and Gerome
> Ragni (book and lyrics) and Galt MacDermot (music)
> wrote additional songs, and a new director, Tom
> O'Horgan, introduced 'sensitivity exercises' to unite
> his cast. Hair got a slot at the Biltmore on Broadway
> in April 1968 when another show dropped out and, for a
> while, it became a sensation, not least when people
> complained about the swearing or nudity, or when an
> astronaut walked out during the interval because he
> felt insulted by what the tribe was doing to an
> American flag.
>
> It opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London six
> months later, a day after the Lord Chamberlain's
> powers to censor stage productions were abolished. The
> show provided breaks for Paul Nicholas, Elaine Paige,
> Marsha Hunt, Oliver Tobias and Sonja Kristina, and
> they received a generally warm, if slightly perplexed,
> critical welcome. The Financial Times described a
> 'vocal few in the gallery' who objected to the
> nipples, and its drama critic looked in vain for a
> traditional plot, but he did admire the exuberance and
> 'three smashing girls' in the cast.
>
> The real hipsters and the underground press were less
> keen, just as the original punks didn't like it when
> ripped T-shirts appeared in Top Shop. As each month of
> the four-year run passed, the freshness slowly gave
> way to parody. Towards the end, coach parties would
> arrive, and Hair became as much of an institution as
> the institutions it was knocking.
>
> Inevitably, Hair grew. It has been performed in
> Sweden, Mexico, Turkey, Venezuela and Japan, and the
> soundtrack is available in many languages. In 1979, it
> was made into an ill-judged film by Milos Forman,
> something Time Out reasoned was 'a smug, banal
> fairytale with a message' that was neither old enough
> to have acquired the dignity of a period piece, nor
> young enough to have the slightest relevance.
>
> In 1993, Hair was revived at the Old Vic, the last
> time it was seen in London. This was not a radically
> updated version and it bombed. Free love then meant
> mostly one thing: Aids. One of the production staff
> has said that the reason it flopped was that the cast
> was made up of 'Thatcher's children who didn't really
> get it'.
>
> The producer of Hair on Broadway, and subsequently 30
> other productions, was Michael Butler, who has been
> utterly transformed by the experience 'from a
> military-industrial hawk to mind-altered dove'. Butler
> was running for the US Senate when he saw the first
> production and taking it to a wider audience seemed to
> him the most daring political statement he could make.
>
> 'Hair is about freedom, peace and love,' he tells me.
> 'Its lessons are permanent and universal.' I asked him
> for his thoughts on the Old Vic show, but he hadn't
> seen it. 'I was told by original tribe members that it
> was terrible. Hair should not be done by strictly
> commercial producers, nor dominated by number
> crunchers. It is a work of affection and needs to be
> produced with TLC.'
>
> He says that of all his productions of Hair, the two
> that were dominated by commercial considerations
> didn't work. I also ask him about nudity. 'Nudity is
> an important element in Hair. I refer to "the
> Emperor's [New] Clothes". Certainly, in this era of
> American imperial hubris, that tale bears
> consideration. Frankly, the nudity at the end of Act 1
> is what has brought a lot of people in to see Hair.
> Then we have them for the messages in the second act
> which mean so much.'
>
> I ask whether he will be coming over for the new show,
> but he says that unfortunately this Saturday he is due
> to take part in a 'major Hair tribal reunion' and he
> would be 'dealing with the aftermath'. Perhaps there
> is another reason; he said that he didn't think a
> radical update would work. 'Even small tinkering is in
> error.'
>
> Meanwhile, over at the home of big tinkering, the
> nudity rehearsals are over. I meet Daniel Kramer at a
> pub near his flat in Camden. He drinks neat whisky and
> says he is nervous about interviews. He also says:
> 'I'm 26 and at 26 I can't afford to fail', which is
> perhaps not something a tribe member would have said
> in 1967.
>
> Kramer is rightly regarded as a hotshot. He became
> associate director at the Gate after his successful
> production there of Woyzeck and his direction of Simon
> Callow in Through the Leaves at the Southwark
> Playhouse transferred to the West End. On Hair, he is
> joined by lots of other hotshots, most in their
> mid-twenties. There is ambitious producer Tali Pelman,
> an Israeli who grew up in South Africa and New York
> before being advised by actor Brian Cox to try her
> hand at the Gate; there is artistic director Thea
> Sharrock, she of the upsetting email, who will soon
> direct Richard Griffiths, John Hurt and Ken Stott in
> Tom Stoppard's translation of Gerald Sibleyras's
> Heroes in the West End; there is the musical director
> Stephen Brooker, who did the same job for The Woman in
> White, My Fair Lady and South Pacific; there is sound
> designer Mick Potter, who this year won an Olivier for
> The Woman In White; there is hair by Vidal Sassoon;
> and then there is the bright-voiced cast, some fresh
> out of drama school, others from Miss Saigon and Les
> Mis, all of them committed to succeeding where others
> have failed.
>
> Kramer has lived in England for five years. When he
> was a young boy in America, he used to listen to the
> songs of Hair a lot and for years he has nurtured
> hopes of directing his interpretation. He was
> convinced that most of the songs still held up, but
> his attempt to convince others that he could be make
> them resonate was a struggle.
>
> 'I'd taken it to a few producers who shall remain
> nameless,' he says. The Iraq war strengthened his
> resolve. 'I felt like it was my duty to do it; it was
> my chance for me to speak up about America and the
> war. It's more appropriate for an American to do that
> than a Brit.' When another play that Kramer hoped to
> direct at the Gate disappointed during workshops, Hair
> took its place. Or, rather, the battle to obtain
> permission to produce a new version of Hair took its
> place.
>
> 'It was a little war in itself,' Kramer says of the
> months that it took to convince the surviving original
> writers - lyricist James Rado and composer Galt
> MacDermot - that it wasn't going to be like some of
> the other projects they had been involved with. 'There
> was the Danish production in the late Nineties
> directed by a protege of Ingmar Bergman,' James Rado
> explains. 'I was impressed by the credit and the guy.
> Worked with him and, with hopeful generosity, gave him
> creative leeway. I was mightily shocked when I saw the
> show in Copenhagen and to my chagrin found the
> director had used the story of the Hair movie [which
> is not one of my favourite things in life].'
>
> More recently, there was the Viennese production.
> 'Instead of Claude being a hippie who has a lock of
> his hair cut in the opening scene,' Rado remembers,
> 'he was now a guy who sat in a barber-like chair and
> had a tattoo burned into his skin. The whole thing was
> elaborately conceived and recorded, but to me was a
> fiasco. I vowed: never again.'
>
> Kramer sent him a draft of his updates, which included
> references to 11 September, the war in Iraq and the
> Kyoto Protocol, and bit-parts for Bush and Blair. The
> writer liked enough of it to keep talking to him, and
> Rado soon provided new suggestions. 'Jim said that he
> really didn't want me to hold back on it,' Kramer
> says. 'He thought that if we were going to do this at
> all, we may as well be as radical as we could possibly
> be.' Rehearsals began four days after the London
> bombings, which were immediately incorporated into the
> script.
>
> Kramer is understandably reluctant to reveal too much
> detail about the transformation. The text updates I
> have seen are quite modest - the Hare Krishna be-in is
> now specifically a vigil for peace in the Middle East,
> while Claude's attack on his parents' interest in
> collecting S&H Green Stamps and King Korn coupons has
> been changed to Doritos stamps. But it is clear that
> the whole mood of the musical has shifted and
> darkened. The action takes place in today's New York,
> although Kramer talks about creating a heightened
> reality and a scene transformation that may remind the
> audience of watching MTV (and perhaps also the
> adverts, where 'Aquarius' now promotes the Ford Focus
> Zetec).
>
> At the Gate, 'Aquarius' leads to the tribe's hangout,
> 'a funky little loft space with some cool graffiti on
> the wall, and this is where they come after classes at
> NYU to hang out and smoke a joint and talk about
> politics and relationships. Then we get to meet the
> gay man, who, in 1968, was bisexual, but in 2005 is
> full-on gay.
>
> Then we meet the white boy who is lost and on Prozac,
> searching for something that means something to him in
> the world. Then it's his medication time and he takes
> his Prozac and we go inside his mind. There's this
> whole movement in which Bush and Rumsfeld and
> Condoleezza Rice appear, and there's racism,
> homophobia, protesting, fighting, crime, the
> environment ...
>
> Kramer says that the auditions took the form of a
> lengthy political discussion. 'Most people did not
> know what the Kyoto Protocol was. It's not a judgment,
> but I tended to go with the people who did.' He also
> discussed nudity. 'I said to everyone, "It's Hair,
> it's famous for its nudity, it doesn't affect casting,
> but tell me what your comfort level is." One person
> said they might have a problem. So some of them are
> taking it off and some of them aren't, but I said from
> the start that I'm not letting nudity get in the way
> of me not casting a brilliant performer.
>
> 'At the time I was casting, I had cut the nudity scene
> out, because that's not what it's about for me. But
> then I began to get interested in why nudity is still
> taboo, especially in America. Britney Spears can
> appear on Nickelodeon and grind in front of 10,000
> children, but I'd rather have Garden of Eden nudity
> than have a child watch her fuck a microphone.' Kramer
> says there is also a second nude scene, 'which I won't
> speak about, but if it doesn't make a point I will
> give up and go back to America'.
>
> There is no doubting the great risks Kramer and his
> team are taking to get their message through. Not
> since the days when Stephen Daldry was in charge has
> the Gate laid such a huge, hopeful spread before an
> audience, and with such a deep ambition, too. The
> expression 'in your face' can seldom have suited a
> production so well.
>
> In one sense, they already have a hit on their hands.
> The run is returns-only at the box office and an
> extension is being planned; after that, the transfer
> to a larger space seems probable. But in another
> sense, it's all to play for. The fact that Hair has
> never been successfully updated before suggests that
> it is rather easier to claim relevance than conjure
> it.
>
> Some things don't change even in four decades. Each
> night, a group of young people must walk on to a stage
> to address one of the oldest and most complex
> questions of all: can they make a difference?
>
>
>
>
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