[Mb-hair] HAIR-London TIMES review

[richard haase]

i just think theyre bastards
i think despite the fact the people love the show in billions
that there is an element of the establishment element of the critics
not the real cogniscenti or artists or actual producers etc
but a conservative element in the press
and in the establishment in general that was gunning for this show from day
one company one
and still is
i heard this kid did some great stuff
thats the word i been hearing

i think this conservative element is still scared shitless of hair and is
still afronted at the bringing of hard core rock and roll in the realm of
the " proper " theater

thats what i think

richard haase in nyc

( i thought the london production was going to go like a house on fire )
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Butler" <michael at michaelbutler.com>
To: "HAIR List" <mb-hair at islandlists.com>
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 1:07 PM
Subject: [Mb-hair] HAIR-London TIMES review


>
> September 23, 2005
>
> Times2
>
> Hair
> Benedict Nightingale at Gate Theatre, W11
>
> THIS show < meaning the original Hair, not last night¹s ineptly updated
> version < was a big deal when it hit London 35 years ago.
>
> That was partly because its portrait of stoned hippies brandishing their
> unshorn locks at American society had made it a cult in New York, but
mainly
> because we had just dispatched the censor to the knacker¹s and were at
long
> last free to see its famous nude scene.
>
> Here, let me inject a personal memory. Halfway through Galt Macdermot¹s
> ³tribal musical² I whispered to a colleague, ³When is the nude scene
> coming?², and he replied, ³It¹s just happened². So for me Hair will for
ever
> mark the time when I realised I needed specs.
>
> At the tiny Gate there¹s no danger of missing what is, in 2005, a pretty
> standard display of bobbing genitalia. Indeed, one would only have to
reach
> out a hand in anger to end several men¹s hopes of fatherhood. What¹s odd,
> though, is that the second such display is meant to evoke the human
pyramids
> at Abu Ghraib. A musical that was once a protest against Vietnam has moved
> to the Iraq era, complete with a poorly caricatured Bush and a spoof
> sergeant who tells the anti-hero to ³get your ass out there and fight
those
> sand-niggers².
>
> It doesn¹t work, least of all in the handling of that anti-hero, Charles
> Aitken¹s spindly Claude. This time he isn¹t the hapless victim of a policy
> that was forcing young men into the killing fields. Rather, he volunteers
> for the army, one moment sneering over his PlayStation at parents who want
> him to get a job, the next bewildering his fellow dropouts by telling them
> that he¹s about to defend democracy.
>
> I was bewildered too, despite a new ending and a dream sequence in which
> Claude twigs what he¹s doing. The hippies in general have become more
> aggressive and confident, which is fine when energetic dancing or singing
is
> needed, but stops us seeing them as the baffled, vulnerable youngsters
they
> were meant to be. A musical about a lost generation has become one about
> brash layabouts exercising their inalienable right to smoke dope, sing
songs
> about love and refuse to grow up.
>
> Starting with that hummable ode to Aquarius, some of those songs still
have
> zing. But evoking a zombie Establishment by dressing actors in judicial
> robes, plus plastic headdresses that can¹t decide if they¹re hair-curlers
or
> coal buckets, is just one of several errors. Moreover, the hippies¹
flowing
> locks, like their clothes, have succumbed to spare modernity. This is a
Hair
> without hair, which is no Hair at all.
>
> Box-office: 020-7229 0706
>
>
>
>
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