The 60s Return in ‘Hair’

There has been a certain nostalgia recently for the 1960s with all its turmoil, student activism, social protest, subculture of rampant permissiveness, changing public attitudes and shifting lifestyles now safely four decades in the past, yet somehow embodying a present-day hope for change.

Similarly, during the 1960s there was a brief-lived and now-forgotten nostalgia for the wild and free-spirited “roaring 20s,” whose rebellion against the previous generation’s social restraint and devastating war seemed to parallel many then-current trends. Petting parties, bootleg booze, and hot jazz had simply been replaced with sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll.

A significant number of people now in their late 50s through early 70s are still entrenched in their 1960s mind-set, and of course the revolutionary new music of the decade eventually became the popular old standards of today. With today’s entertainment industry in Hollywood and Broadway devoted more to remakes, sequels, and revivals than in creativity, it made perfect sense for the return to Broadway earlier this year of the groundbreaking 1968 show “Hair.”

Regional audiences can see this definitive artifact of 1960s musical theatre in the well-mounted semi-professional Crimson Creek Players’ production now on stage at the historic Empire Arts Center in downtown Grand Forks. While the hit songs, frank language, and anti-establishment themes remain intact, the Crimson Creek production elected to eliminate the controversial brief scene of full-frontal nudity by the cast, which provided a cathartic, emotional conclusion to Act One in the original Broadway production (as well as much of the show’s notoriety).

“Hair” is primarily a fast-paced musical revue by a large ensemble of singer-dancers, rather than a traditional plot or character-centered musical. There is a thin plot thread tying the show together, however, enacted in brief skits between some songs, and three central characters quickly emerge. What story there is involves the resistance of one character’s draft into the army, and the romantic relationships among those three overlapping with each other and several other members of the group.

“Berger,” recently expelled from high school, is the most aggressively anarchic and more or less, perhaps paradoxically, acknowledged by the rest of “the tribe” as their leader. “Claude” is sort of a conflicted “Hamlet” figure (an intentional parallel by the playwright) torn between serving in the war he opposes and actively resisting the draft to remain in his new hippie lifestyle. “Sheila” is a dedicated activist whose love for the free-spirited and unpredictable Berger gives her as much pain as the social injustice she sees in the world.

Producer Benjamin Klipfel and director Chris Berg have assembled a consistently strong cast of 19 people, all late teen and twenty-somethings from the Grand Forks or Fargo area, either natively, newly-arrived, or returning for the summer (some now attending graduate school in New York or the Twin Cities). All have good voices and impressive movement abilities, under the able musical direction of Matt Strand and choreography of Laura Dvorak-Berry.

Standing out in the cast is newcomer to Grand Forks, Doug Chavis, whose unrelenting physical and vocal energy easily pulls the rest of the characters and the audience into the mood of the show. Regional theatre veteran Jared Kinney gives a powerful performance as Claude that gives extra resonance to the final number, “Let the Sun Shine In.” Recent UND theatre grad and current NYU student Jesi Mullins makes Sheila into such a vivid character that one wishes the script had explored more of its plot potential rather than focusing on the music.

The rest of the cast work as a true ensemble together, with everyone given a chance to shine in certain songs, either individually or in small groups. Besides the famous title number, the show has over 30 songs including such hits as “The Age of Aquarius,” “Good Morning Starshine,” “Air,” “Walking in Space,” and “Let the Sun Shine In,” the latter of which becomes much more emotional in its original context.

A major aspect of the production and a large part if its impact is the immediacy it can provide that is impossible on film or video. Cast members not only address the audience directly at times, but periodically leave the stage to interact with audience members. Milos Forman’s 1979 film of “Hair” preserved the show’s main songs and greatly expanded the plot, but could not recreate the electric intensity of a live performance.

The success of “Hair” today may derive largely from its music, but its often-outrageous and outraged politically-incorrect commentary on racism, sexism, materialism, and especially war remind viewers of both how much and how little has changed in the past 40 years. The simplistic hippie, flower-child life of free love and perpetual drug-induced escape from reality that the show celebrates can now be approached more as a parable of impractical idealism than as an impending threat.

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Info:

What: “Hair”
When: Now - Aug 15; shows nightly at 7:30 pm
Where: Empire Arts Center, Grand Forks
Cost: $18 for adults, $15 for students & senior citizens. Group discounts are available.