To see the playbill and ticket stubs from the performance this review talks about click here.
 

Hair revisited: a pretty darn good show.

It must be a test of a show if it bears up as well at the second seeing as it did at the first.  Unexpectedly Hair did Thursday night the start of a 10-day stand at the Shubert.

The actors were a little thinner this time, the boys better muscled, the girls shaplier, the whole job a little more professional.  And that didn't do the show a mite of harm.

The actors and actresses, young men and women did not stint of their strength and were spraying sweat long before the end of the first act in the steaming night of the opener.  The nude tableau at the end of the first act was, at least, seasonal.

Funny thing about that nude tableau, it falls into place without an ounce of shock.  The second time around you anylize why and it turns out that the first act is saying something like this, "Look, this is our way of life, this is our music, this is what we want, this is our joy.  Are we honest? Look, no clothes."

By the second act, we know these young people and we're ready to listen because they speak not with forked tongues.  And what do they say?  They say it's joy that makes life worth living and whatever frustrated joy is death.  A worthy message.

All the performer this time around are good from a very pregnant young woman to the second lead played by Doug Rowell who can walk across rows of seats on the arm rests.  The most compelling performer was the lead himself, Lyle K'Ang.

Hair has been running for four years now with companies here and there all over the world.  How can they, after that long, still throw so much strength into it?  Maybe because it says something fundamental in an idiom the kids enjoy.