[Mb-hair] Visceral connections

[richard haase]

Visceral connectionsalso martin where it might matter
is that for example the reason the foreman film missed so badly was a lack of visceral connection with the various tumults of the 60s as it occurred here in america
the picture was totally divorced from the reality of the piece
in my opinion

so i wonder as a director of one of the companies
( eg off bdwy revival in 80 - 81 in nyc at harry streeps
400 seat brook theater )
and as a packager who seeks at some pt in the near future
to do more companies
so the question of relevancy accessibility is very important for me

eg look what happened to toms revival in 77 which arrived DOA commercially speaking and yet wasnt a bad production;
i thought the 77 revival was quite quite excellent
although not quite as good as the original production
which was the greatest evening i ever spent in the theater
ever
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Martin Eayrs 
  To: mb-hair at islandlists.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 6:58 AM
  Subject: [Mb-hair] Visceral connections




  Richard asks:


    i got an interesting question
    obviously many of these companies youre seeing are wonderful
    and the show itself is so penultimately good
    but im curious
    when one sees a company now
    the generation being so divorced from the actual physical
    reality of the period
    eg i was 10 - 11 at the time and ill be 47 this summer


    the passion of the struggle etc
    do the kids now know what " it " was about?
    what is their visceral connection
    i wonder
    ?


  I suppose a deconstructionist approach to this would be that the AUDIENCE will get out of it according to it what they are able to bring to it - that is, it will be the interaction of the event with their own bundle of experiences and expectations. This could lead to some unexpected interpretations...


  The event itself will be the aggregated accumulation of what the ACTORS and DIRECTOR(S) themselves are able to bring to it. In the case of a 21st Century High School production this may not be comparable with early off Broadway productions whose cast   -it is often alleged - lived the parts they played and even lived partly in the playing area. Comments very welcome :-)


  And, big question, what was/is Hair about? Can the war in Iraq compare with the Vietnam War?  Obviously not - no conscription, no draft card to burn. Sexual liberation (through freely available contraception) is no longer a newly liberating thing. The mystery and romance had already gone out of drugs by the time I reached San Francisco in Autumn 1969, when Haight Ashbury was a disaster area of bombed out panhandlers and the Summer of Love a two year old memory. Or perhaps i just met the wrong people ;-)


  That said, i think Hair has a lot to offer present generations - and not just recidivist hippies in their fifties ad sixties. (Terrible thought, but if you lived the sixties you are - or soon will be - in the sixties). And if you dig it, does it matter why ? The point is that audiences do dig it - and I think they will, even if they react to it within terms of reference that have no relationship to the late 60s.


  End of long incoherent rave .. and back to work, or what passes for it


  Martin


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