Hair
Hair Lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni
Music by Galt McDermott
Direction by Elena Day
Choreography by Ellie Potts Barrett
Starring Byron DeMent, Jaymeson Metz
Mad Cow Theater, Orlando, FL</strong>
It was so cool being a hippy in 1968, especially if mom and dad are a just a few miles away. You can simultaneously dis their bourgeois suburban life style and still pop in for a decent meal and some cash when sleeping out in Central Park gets old. Sure, there was that whole “Get drafted and sent to Viet Nam” thing, but you could always burn your draft card because they can’t draft you without it. Right? We spend act one getting to know Berger (Metz) and his tribe as they smoke smokeless pot, have sweaty hippy sex and generally flaunt the conventions of society regarding sex, race and personal hygiene. Berger’s a Charlie Manson looking gnome and his best buddy is poseur Claude (Dement). Claude claims to be from Manchester UK but his draft card says Bayonne, New Jersey. He’s been called up, and if you read between the lines you’ll guess he’s against the draft but might go in anyway: it’s his driver’s license that goes up in smoke.
I’d really love to love this festival of free love, and there are some great songs here backed up with a compact three piece band and occasional uncredited cello work from one of the tribe, but most of the first act passed without a clue as to why we should care other then we can lip sync to its like “Hair” (ensemble) and “Easy to be Hard “(sung by Heather Kopp). If Claude is having any sort of interesting internal debate about the military, he pretty much keeps it too himself. The second act fared better, when Claude resolves his poorly expressed issues the show finds its major dramatic moment, and I was moved. I also thought the entire black light version of “The War” was cleverly done and makes up for many other flaws in this production.
Those flaws are choreography (Ellie Potts Barrett) that never seemed to find something interesting for the cast of 18 to do, and the “Wall of Hair” moves for the title song made me think “Yup, there’s a lot of hair on this stage.” Then there’s the curtain speech that falls in the middle of an otherwise exciting opening montage of cast members drifting on stage as the band played some urgent dope smoking sounds, I was really in the mood at that point but the preshow speech felt like having to make a condom run halfway through an evening of romance. The preshow warns us about nudity, but when the cast does strip down the lights go down with their undies and you’ll have to look quick to be offended. Go see this for the music and the vibe, but there’s more to this script than makes it to the stage: Less smoke and more about Claude’s conflict would really help this classic.
For more information on Mad Cow, please visit http://www.madcowtheatre.com
