In this new column for BroadwayWorld.com Hodges and Hodges Set the Stage provides a wide-ranging look into select productions that are premiering or touring in the Bay area.
Dedicated to enhancing the theater-going experience, Hodges and Hodges act as your very own dramaturges, theater critics and local restaurant, local tour guides so that you can fully immerse yourself in the show - even before you enter the actual theater. It's nothing you couldn't look up yourself - but why bother when they've already done the research for you? So, sit back and enjoy the trip and get ready for the full-on HAIR experience.
HAIR
San Francisco's getting ready to pay homage to the Summer of Love with the Golden Gate Theater's production of HAIR, Broadway's Tony Award winning show about a group of young Americans searching for peace and love in the turbulent 60's. Can you think of a better show for the Bay Area - the absolute apex of the sexual revolution, psychedelic rock and the home of the Grateful Dead? We didn't think so!
The Hair-y Details:
The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical HAIR first opened on Broadway in the spring of 1968 - ten months after the Summer of Love convergence happened in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, the center of the radical hippie revolution. What a time that was!
Enter HAIR's Tribe - young non-conformists breaking free from the mold and living their peace-loving values on the streets of New York City. Claude and his best friend Berger, along with their roommate Sheila, form the inner circle of the Tribe. Together they get high on life, sex and drugs and protest against the war. At the end of ACT I they pass out flyers inviting the audience to a Be-In. This is where the infamous nude scene happens as the Tribe burns their draft cards. Signature songs includes "Let the Sunshine In," "Aquarius" and "Good Morning Starshine."
What to watch for - from Linda:
HAIR has to be careful not to teeter into caricature and instead try to capture the raw spontaneity and youthful exuberance - as well as the angst, fear and turbulence - of the times. With such a loosely stitched script HAIR can easily come apart at the seams and lose its focus. But a strong cast will lift this show into the stratosphere. Berger's opening monologue sets the tone but the audience has to help. Come in ready to have fun and celebrate the hippie generation!
What to watch for - from Nick (who was a member of the Tribe in a local production):
HAIR is a show that can be performed with many different artistic interpretations. That's what makes it such a joy to watch each time. That can also be what makes the show a struggle to sit through. Because of HAIR's ability to be morphed into, really whatever the director sees fit, it's hard to do a truly successful production of the show without having an equally true understanding of the times and what these young people's values were and what they wanted to accomplish.
Another interesting quality that this show has is the nude scene during "Where Do I Go." This can also be done in different ways, but can be harmful to the show if done wrong. "Hippies," as there were called and not self-named, believed that everyone should be happy and feel blessed with the bodies we were born with. The freedom that comes with loving yourself so much - to the point of being able to share your most intimate parts with anyone - is a freedom that's hard to describe and one that the "hippie" generation embodied. Being nude isn't about sex, but about the freedom to love who you are and being able to accept everyone else for what they are and to just love everybody.
From both of us:
HAIR will play well in the San Francisco Bay Area because this is where the movement was born.
Expect to see lots of real hippies! It will also attract young people who have fallen in love with the show. Above all we know that the Bay Area will welcome HAIR with open arms!
HAIR-Y Things to Do in San Francisco:
• Put the music to HAIR on your Ipod, as well as the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair), and make a pilgrimage to the corner of Haight & Ashbury. "The Haight" was the navel of the 1960's counter-cultural revolution. If you're bold enough, hand out daisies to passersby and wish them "peace and love" before the show.
• Visit the Grateful Dead Victorian House at 710 Ashbury St, and then drop by to see where Janis Joplin lived at 635 Ashbury and 122 Lyon. Jefferson Airplane band members spent time there during the Summer of Love.
• Hang out in Golden Gate Park where the first Human Be-in took place in 1967. Visit Hippie Hill in the Park on Kezar Dr. Sit cross-legged on the grass and try channeling Timothy Leary who spoke at the event saying the now famous phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out." Sing "Aquarius" at the top of your lungs.
• If you go to Berkeley, head over the Cal Berkeley's Sproul Plaza where the Free Speech Movement began. Stand on the spot that reads "This soil and the airspace extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity's jurisdiction." Make a speech and pass out more flowers.
