Theater
Hair
Brown show has more power than flower
By: by Jim Seavor
(Published in Motif Magazine March 2006)

Hair
Stuart Theatre, 77 Waterman St., Providence.
Thurs. through Sat. 8 p.m. Sunday 2 p.m.
TICKETS: $15, Senior Citizens $10, Students $5. Call 863-2838.

The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical hasn’t aged. Yes, the glowing gentleness of drugs seems moored in the 1960s, but sending our young off to war has not changed. The war in Hair is Vietnam, but our news reports are filled with images of tearful farewells.

There is one example of bringing Hair into the present. An anti-war protest is aimed directly at the current conflict. “Texas has oil. Bomb Texas” reads one placard.

The program also turns backward in its reminder. It prints excerpts from something Mark Twain wrote. They begin with “Shall we go on conferring our civilization upon the peoples that sit in the darkness or shall we give those poor things a rest?...”

The excerpts end with the suggestion that perhaps we should paint the white stripes on our flag black and replace its stars with the skull and crossbones. That was in 1901.

One thing stands out seeing Hair again and that is how well its songs have remained in our memories.

Woof (Baniel Sobel) lists all the ways of having sex in “Sodomy” while “Colored Spade” does the same with derogatory terms for African-Americans. Claude (Steven Levenson) sings about Manchester England and Berger (Ethan Philbrick) is still looking for “Donna.”

“Aquarius” is started by a young girl at Brown and “Let the Sunshine In” is a demand.

The thread thin plot concerns whether or not Claude will answer the draft.
In many ways Hair is a musical revue — song follows song and then there's a brief break to remind us there is almost a plot. The original off-Broadway version had more plot while the film version changed the ending.

This Hair is well sung.
The large cast is filled with strong voices, whether it’s praising the joys of lots of hair or, in “Walking in Space,” the joys of good drugs.

There are times things spill over into the audience: Berger begins his search in the seats and “Be-In” (Hare Krishna) brings the tribe down the aisle.

There is an on-stage band — a good one — and there are puppets, both giant and small. Projections provide not just a form of light show, but often set the period with images of the world when Hair was born.

Under the direction of Chris Bayes, this Hair is darker than some productions. The flower in flower child is not emphasized. This tribe stamps its feet. The choreography of Michelle Bach-Coulibaly includes the expected, and required, writhing while keeping the tribe moving.

One thing the original had that this production does not is the nudity that ended the first act.

In one way, Hair shows how times have changed. When producers tried to bring the national tour into Providence while the show was still running in New York, the state was not amused and tried to keep it out.

They did succeed in banning it from Veterans Memorial Auditorium. That meant it was moved to the larger theatre that is now the Providence Performing Arts Center where it set records. At least that’s what I remember and memory can be fickle.

PLEASE NOTE: All Sunday performances are now 2 PM Matinees.

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