Hair

I've seen Hair a few more times than I'd like to admit. Let' start in 2007. I lined up with two friends at the Public Theater at about 6:00 in the morning to get tickets to the 40th anniversary concert in Central Park. It starred Jonathan Groff as a phlegmatic Claude (I've never seen a performer spit so much), Patina Miller, now in Sister Act, as a glorious Dionne, and Karen Olivo as a lispy Sheila. It was a thrill to hear the score live. I had listened to it probably a hundred times or more growing up and adored it. But for some reason, I left the park that night feeling this curious disconnect. What seeing it performed live for me really drove home was that these hippies didn't seem to actually seem to be motivated by peace and love but by narcissism and self-protection. Without a draft, I started to wonder, would there have been hippies? Further, when did I start getting so cynical?

Flash forward a year. Hair is back in the park as part of the Shakespeare in the Park season, and they've instituted a virtual lottery so you have a chance of winning tickets without waiting on line. Knowing the concert left me a bit cold, I was still more than happy to go back and see it just to hear the music. There was a new Sheila, who I still didn't like, but much the rest of the cast stayed the same. IT felt more staged than before though the set was simply a mound of grass and a psychedelic bandshell. It started to really win me over. Sure, I could question the narcissism of the characters and the enormity of their self-involvement, but with performances more deeply fleshed out, they felt like real people confronting something bigger than them, lost in a void and not knowing what to do. I ended up seeing it three times in the park, enjoying it more each time but not feeling quite as much in love as I expected to be--I kept going back because it was free, really.

Flash forward to 2009, and the production moved to the Hirschfeld theater. And it's at that moment that I tumbled head over heels for it. For me, it was as though the show needed a back wall to bounce off of. Out of doors, it had felt free flowing and sweet, but once it moved inside, for me, it galvanized the entire show and ramped up the energy across the board. Groff was replaced as Claude by Gavin Creel who I thought was wonderful. I worried that the new Dionne would pale in comparison to Patina Miller, but Sasha Allen brought a voice just as big and expressive. And there was yet another new Sheila...who I still didn't like. WTF was up with me and the actresses playing this part? Even though it was my fifth time seeing it (though the first I paid for it), I fell deeply, terribly in love with the show that first time in the theater and went on to see it mumblemumble times.

So then it closed and went on tour. I said my goodbyes. Then those bastards decided to bring the touring cast back to Broadway for the summer. Don't they know I'm not strong enough to resist?? So I went back and for the first time got to see it with an almost entirely new cast exempting Darius Nichols and Kacey Sheik who continue to deliver two of my favorite performances as Hud and Jeannie. That they're still as good as they are and seem to be having as much fun as they are is crazy to me since they've been doing these same parts off and on for four years now.

I was excited to see a new Berger because I always had some trouble with the fact that Will Swenson was about double the age of the character. While Steel Burkhardt performs the role admirably, I found that after all my bitching about how he was too old to play the role, I quite missed Will Swenson's outsize presence. His Berger was more obnoxious but also more charismatic. Burkhardt plays him a little more lost and desperate, which works very well, but I wanted to see a blending of the two--dark moments contrasted with higher highs. I was less excited to see a new Claude because I felt it was a role that had been done brilliantly and the bar was set too high. Then along comes Paris Remillard to tear the shit up delivering the best performance I've seen out of the four actors that I've seen in the role. He's the most sincere, the most believable, and dare I say even has the best voice of any of them. His Claude is achingly beautiful and earnest, the beating heart of the production as it now stands and its strongest performer. And what of Sheila? Do I just hate the part? As it turns out, no. I loved this Sheila which is confusing since it turns out she's the same one from the second summer. So what happened in the meantime that turned a performance I didn't enjoy at all into one I thought was wonderful? Well, it's been a while, but I think she's got better chemistry with this Berger, has become more in touch with the anxiety of the role, and simply perfected her big number, "Easy to Be Hard." It was the first time I've believed this character, and her disappointments became crushing. She just connected in lovely and wonderful ways.

So yeah, I'll go back. Again. Goddammit.