Hair
Written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado
Music by Galt MacDonald
Footbridge Theatre, Sydney
Reviewed by Barry Healy
Hair is moving, dramatic, entertaining and confronting. Anyone expecting some kind of dewy-eyed recreation of flower power (as I did) will be in for many rude shocks. It is a period piece, but one with a lot to say.
The basic story is of Claude, a suburban New York kid who lives in a dream world of having been born in Manchester, England, encountering a group of hippies in a park while on one last spree before his induction into the army to fight in Vietnam. The hippy Tribe, led by a sexual athlete called Berger, set out to liberate his thinking on sex, drugs, race and authority.
It helps to know the plot in advance because the audience is given no chance of following it. From the first moment the tempo is frenetic and surreal (there are 170 sequences and 48 songs), and little attention is paid to communicating gently.
The emphasis is on confronting prejudices: within the first few minutes Berger has stripped down to his underpants and is running through the audience kissing men and throwing himself at women. Sexual liberation, especially homosexual freedom, is stressed continually.
The first act has the flavour of a university review and, while entertaining and witty, is not particularly interesting. But the fast-moving dancing and surrealism prepare the hallucinogenic second act, in which Claude has a bad acid trip contemplating his future in Vietnam. This builds ferociously to an emotionally jolting climax.
The play is presented entirely as a '60s period piece, so no attempt is made to update the peace theme with references to post-Vietnam US wars. Its impact could be increased by a few subtle digs about such things as the Gulf War. Also, its criticisms and lampooning of racism are all in the US context. It would not be too difficult to add a further critical edge by linking Australian issues such as Aboriginal deaths in custody.
But these are minor criticisms of a brilliant play, one that has offended reactionaries since it first appeared. What better endorsement could Hair have than the words of Russ Hinze when it first came to Australia: "The appeal can only be to the sexually depraved, homosexuals, lesbians, wife swappers and spivs".