Saturday, February 19, 2011
Cast works hard to make 'Hair' shine, sometimes too hard
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "'Hair' is a musical that works overtime to make the audience to like it. And the harder it works, the less I like it. Mine definitely is a minority opinion. Those attending Tuesday night's opening of the PNC Broadway Across America -- Pittsburgh presentation of this iconic 1960s musical overwhelmingly embraced this tribe of youngsters high on peace, pot and possibilities.
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I undertand from where this reviewer was coming, having seen Hair as a revival in New York, and imagine it's a criticism that many revivals might receive. I'm midway through reading Free for All, Joseph Papp's biography, and, indeed, the feelings and atmosphere that lead to the creation of the original were very different that what audience members can expect to see from the same show today. Hair's first run on Broadway directly following playing at the Public was not particularly successful because it was very political and lacked the universality sought by today's producers; the next production, while changed to more of a spectacle, was still current at the time. Hair is fun, but I fear it is no longer deep; in light of this, I am very interested to see what we do with it next year at CMU.
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