Thursday, May 2, 2024

Hair Musical Plot & Characters

hair the play

Three tribe members dress up as principals in Hitler mustaches and swastika arm bands, mocking the American education system. He pretends to burn his Vietnam War draft card, which Berger reveals as a library card. Following his "trip", Claude falls out with Berger and the tribe members, ostensibly due to a practical joke on Sheila (taking her clothes while she's skinny-dipping, which forces her to hail a taxi in just her panties), but also due to their philosophical differences over the war in Vietnam — and over personal versus communal responsibility. After wandering the city ("Where Do I Go?"), Claude finally reports to the draft board (“Black Boys/White Boys”), completes his enlistment, and is shipped off to Nevada for basic training. Claude Hooper Bukowski of Oklahoma is sent off to New York City after being drafted into the Army ("Aquarius"). Before his draft board-appointment, Claude explores New York, where he encounters a close-knit "tribe" of hippies led by George Berger.

Race and the tribe

Vogel shows us what might have happened to Amanda, Tom and Laura Wingfield after the curtain falls in “The Glass Menagerie” — and if they’d lived in Washington, D.C., and if they’d lived in a later time frame (1964 to the 21st century) and if Tom returned. And that’s not the only “if.” Phyllis (Jessica Lange), the mother in Vogel’s play, would no doubt prefer that her daughter, Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger), had Laura’s physical challenge over the one this young woman faces. Ronny Dyson and Melba Moore, both from the Broadway version of Hair, both sing on "Three Five Zero Zero". That evening, Claude gets stoned on marijuana with Berger and the tribe.

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Hair – Original Broadway Cast Recording 1968

hair the play

A Broadway revival of Hair opened in 1977 for a run of 43 performances. It was produced by Butler, directed by O'Horgan and performed in the Biltmore Theater, where the original Broadway production had played. By the late 1960s, it was only a matter of time before rock music — real rock music, not the Tin Pan Alley-spoof kind — hit Broadway.

Broadway

In defiance, Claude leads the tribe in celebrating their vitality ("I Got Life"). An appreciation of the 1967 love-rock musical, which, against the odds, won over audiences across the world. After handing out imaginary pills to the tribe members, saying the pills are for high-profile people such as Richard Nixon, the Pope, and "Alabama Wallace", Berger relates how he was expelled from high school.

Hair Broadway Original Cast

Once unlocked, you’ll be free to return to Gwen’s Hair Salon, where you’ll encounter Kasim, who will ask for help to track down some salon equipment that can be found in the Wasteland. We highly recommend picking up the “First Customer” Side Quest before adventuring into the Wasteland, as the next main mission, Altess Levoire, also takes place in the same area, allowing you to complete this side quest at the same time. The May 17 ceremony will be open to the public, with tickets and tables available to the lunchtime event at DramaLeague.org. “Mother Play” also recalls another theater classic that never gets revived these days, and for good reason.

About Hair on Broadway

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It’s also unforgivably untidy, impossibly naive, insufferably lazy here and unmistakably thinning there — but inescapably, infuriatingly winning, too, what with the snuggle-puppies vibe of its hippie-commune characters and the undertone of existential confusion that shades and deepens the best of the sunny-with-a-chance-of-apocalypse tunes. Our website is made possible bydisplaying online advertisements to our visitors. The tribe recites a list of pharmaceuticals, legal and illegal ("Hashish"). Woof, a gentle soul, extols several sexual practices ("Sodomy") and says, "I grow things." He loves plants, his family and the audience, telling the audience, "We are all one." Hud, a militant African-American, is carried in upside down on a pole.

Claude returns from the induction center, and tribe members act out an imagined conversation from Claude's draft interview, with Hud saying "the draft is white people sending black people to make war on the yellow people to defend the land they stole from the red people". Claude gives Woof a Mick Jagger poster, and Woof is excited about the gift, as he has said he's hung up on Jagger. Three white women of the tribe tell why they like "Black Boys" ("black boys are delicious ..."), and three black women of the tribe, dressed like The Supremes, explain why they like "White Boys" ("white boys are so pretty ..."). Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the "Age of Aquarius" living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution, with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifist principles and risking his life.

Principal roles; Notable cast members

As they "look at the Moon," Sheila and the others enjoy a light moment ("Good Morning Starshine"). He leaves as the tribe enters wrapped in blankets in the midst of a snow storm. Berger calls out "Claude! Claude!" Claude enters dressed in a military uniform, his hair short, but they do not see him because he is an invisible spirit. Two tribe members dressed as tourists come down the aisle to ask the tribe why they have such long hair. In answer, Claude and Berger lead the tribe in explaining the significance of their locks ("Hair"). The woman states that kids should "be free, no guilt" and should "do whatever you want, just so long as you don't hurt anyone." She observes that long hair is natural, like the "elegant plumage" of male birds ("My Conviction").

Awards and nominations

After a six-week limited run at the Public Theater in 1967, Hair opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre April 29, 1968. The musical, directed by Tom O’Horgan with dance direction by Julie Arenal, played 17 previews and 1,750 performances before closing July 2, 1972, earning Tony Award nominations for Best Direction and Best Musical. After a black-out, the tribe enters worshiping in an attempt to summon Claude ("Oh Great God of Power").

At the 37th Golden Globe Awards, Hair was nominated for a Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Williams was nominated for New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture – Male. The film was also nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 1980 César Awards, losing to Woody Allen's Manhattan (which was also released by United Artists). Months later, Claude, Sheila, and the tribe gather at Berger's grave in Arlington National Cemetery, whose grave marker shows that he was killed in Vietnam ("Let the Sunshine In"). So thoroughly of its time are the show’s once-radical specifics — it’s all in on free love, psychedelic drugs, and men figuring out that OMG, they can like each other — that it really has no business working anymore. Yet in an America whose kids seem uncertain about their place and almost frantically eager to find better ways of being in the world, Matthew Gardiner’s exuberant and openhearted production sure does — and it bit me right in the soft spot where I usually store up my bile. After the trip, Claude says "I can't take this moment to moment living on the streets. ... I know what I want to be ... invisible".

The tribe moves in front of Claude as Sheila and Dionne take up the lyric. The whole tribe launches into "Let the Sun Shine In", and as they exit, they reveal Claude lying down center stage on a black cloth. During the curtain call, the tribe reprises "Let the Sun Shine In" and brings audience members up on stage to dance.

He is then introduced to various race and class issues of the 1960s ("Hashish", "Colored Spade", "Manchester", "I'm Black/Ain't Got No"). The next morning, Berger finds a newspaper clipping which gives Sheila's home address. The tribe members — LaFayette "Hud" Johnson, Jeannie Ryan (who is pregnant), and "Woof Dacshund" — crash a private dinner party to introduce Claude to Sheila, who secretly enjoys her rigid environment being disrupted ("I Got Life"). After Berger and company are arrested, Claude uses his last $50 to bail him out of jail — where Woof resists having his hair cut ("Hair").

And just last year, “Hair” was removed from the schedule of NBC’s series of live televised musicals, suggesting it still wasn’t ready for prime time. In the original Broadway production, the stage was completely open, with no curtain and the fly area and grid exposed to the audience. Wagner's spare set was painted in shades of grey with street graffiti stenciled on the stage. The stage was raked, and a tower of abstract scaffolding upstage at the rear merged a Native American totem pole and a modern sculpture of a crucifix-shaped tree.

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