What a Piece of Work Is Man

Review: Hair
Al Hirschfeld Theatre, New York
May 30, 2009

Last Saturday, I sat down in the "be-in" box at the Al Hirschfeld (maybe my favorite Broadway theater, filled as it is with caricatures of that stage's ghosts). On the aisle, I was exposed to potential interaction with cast members. I didn't know yet a hippie would pat me on the head, thanking me for already being stoned. I didn't realize we'd be ushered onto the stage at curtain call, to wave our arms as the band rocked out to "Let the Sunshine In."

But at this matinee, the sun indeed shone in, and not just because of the latecomers. What lasts about Hair, a loose amalgam of neuroses and rebellion and 1960s revolution that no longer shocks, is the spirit of community. Our audience, before jumping up on the stage floor and jiving with Gavin Creel and Will Swenson, grew bonded to the Tribe and their raucous innocence. I was surprised that, with time taming the beast that is Hair, it remains an incredibly earnest vehicle, especially in the females' songs, "Frank Mills" and "Easy to Be Hard" (remember the Three Dog Night cover?).

Gavin Creel portrays Claude, the only individual in a show where the Tribe lives and breathes as one shapeshifting character, with all the sweetness and uncertainty of any of us, searching around (and without being too angsty!), seeking that distant Something More that doesn't seem to come from either Free Love or War. In such a presentational musical, the ending still stings for its lack of showiness: the whole company bonds together, watching one of them sent off to battle and knowing they won't return. The power of musicals like Hair, much like its World War II predecessors South Pacific and On the Town, is that all the robust jubilance of life remains at the forefront without selling short the imminent danger or the undying question of where we go.