Supreme visions of lonely tunes
I didn’t get to see the 40th anniversary concert staging of “Hair” this weekend. From the early reviews I’ve read so far, it sounds like it was a great production, and the seven-hour wait for tickets doesn’t seem excessive by Delacorte standards. Still, I’m not that depressed about missing the show. After all, I saw the original—and was kinda, sorta, almost in the movie. The original production of Hair was the first Broadway show I ever saw, back in 1969 or 1970 (I know I didn’t see it in ‘67 or ‘68, because I distinctly remember discussing the lyrics to “Initials” with my parents, and being told that “RMN” stood for Richard M. Nixon). And the cast recording was one of the first records I owned. I listened to it over and over, memorizing the lyrics—or what I thought were the lyrics. Childhood mondegreens still pop up, unbidden, whenever I listen to that album, my personal favorite being my interpretation of the line “I got headaches and toothaches and bad times too, like you” in “I Got Life,” as “bad times to like you.” Misheard or not, the music of Hair was an important part of the backdrop to my early years, and many of the show’s songs trigger Proust-like recollections of childhood (I still get a chill every time I hear “The Flesh Failures”—and not just because the cast stripped nude at the end of the song).
While I have nothing but fond memories of the original Broadway production, I can’t say the same about Milos Forman’s 1979 movie version. For one thing, I’m not in it. Back when the film was being shot, there was an open call for extras to come to Central Park and portray hippies. I showed up, in my long hair, bell bottoms and gauzy shirt, and hung around hoping to be immortalized. Alas, my scenes were relegated to the proverbial cutting room floor (or worse; I don’t even know if the camera was ever pointed in my direction). But it’s not just the poor casting decisions that made the movie a disappointment. If the play was an exuberant, sloppy, in-your-face, real-time celebration of the 60s, the movie was more like, as London’s Time Out said, “a National Lampoon parody of some ghastly Swinging Sixties compendium.” Variety also got it right, commenting that “the spirit and elan that captivated the Vietnam protest era are long gone, and what Forman tries to make up with splash and verve fails to evoke potent nostalgia.” The movie, in its freeform-yet-predictable plot-line, with its too-cute set pieces, and with its heavy-handed moralizing, struck all the wrong notes (fortunately Forman, who had soared with “Cuckoo’s Nest” before shooting “Hair,” redeemed himself to theater lovers a few years later, with “Amadaeus”). Perhaps the best thing about the Delcorte production is that it will expose a new generation to the raw energy and passion of the original play. With luck, it will get picked up for a full Broadway treatment. Its message would certainly resonate today, and I for one would gladly pay good money to hear “Initials” sung with “GWB” in the lyrics.
