The Beginning of My Obsession with Hair
I have a long standing history with the musical Hair. It was one of the first film musicals I remember viewing as a pre teen and one of the first I remember obsessing over. I viewed it for the first time somewhere around the age of ten years old, after my mother decided I was finally old enough to watch the film. I later came to realize it was one of her favorite films and since my viewing of the film, it has become a film we watch on mother/daughter days (other films that we’d do this too were Moulin Rouge, Little Shop of Horrors, Across the Universe and the non musical film Hook. Clearly, we like musicals). Of course, my mother did her best to try and censor the film for my young eyes. The song “Sodomy”did not exist in my version of Hair. She fast forwarded through the controversial track and well into my adult hood, I did the same. I’ve broken the habit but to this day it still feels like a taboo if I view or listen to the “Sodomy” segment.
But I’ve gotten off track. I had a point and the point is very simple. I love Hair. During my brief years of entertaining the prospect of becoming a director, of both film and stage, I always dreamed of bringing Hair back to Broadway for my generation. Once America entered the war on Terror, my desire for a Hair revival became greater. Hair seemed necessary in my eyes in our political climate. I wasn’t the only one to have this view and in 2007, Hair began to play in Central Park.
The Central Park Performances
The Central Park performances became my dreams. I wanted to visit New York and watch one of the performances. I had every thing in preparation as well until my lodgings fell through, this being before I realized I was capable of making day trips to the city. I was briefly sullen at my missed opportunity, having been under the impression it was a very limited engagement, and did my best to not sulk too much about the incident. The Central Park performances proved to be so popular that the revival was commissioned, first beginning at the Public Theater then moving to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, where I was lucky enough to view the show two days ago.
My Viewing of Hair on Broadway
Hair became the third show I’ve seen in New York City. I ventured to New York City as a Spring Break trip with my roommate. Hair was a Christmas present from my parents to her and I, while her parents got us tickets to see Phantom of the Opera later that evening. As I saw the musical on the 17th of March, the original revival cast (which included most of the cast members from the Central Park and Public Theater performances) had just left the musical. The original cast is now working on originating a revival on the West End stage. While it certainly would have been nice to see the original participants of the revival, it didn’t matter much to me as a viewer. It was a revival no matter how you looked at it and all that mattered to me was energy. Energy was something that my cast certainly did not lack. Every cast member seemed to be full of exuberance, loving the performance they were a part of, and seemingly having a great time.
I admit that prior to my viewing of the stage show, I had never put any effort into researching the production. I assumed that the film was a close adaptation of the source material and that perhaps the stage show had a few extra songs. I was of course wrong and I am glad of it. While I will continue to love and cherish the film, it fails in comparison to the stage show. The stage show’s plot is vastly different from that of the film. The differences are so great that one wonders just how a director could take so much creative liberty with the material. When placed together in an effort to find a comparison, one only finds that the songs are identical and characters share the same names. Nothing else is identical.
Differences between Stage and Screen
In the stage show, Claude is a member of the tribe of hippies. The tribe is larger then the four members the film portrays, in fact it comprises of most of the cast. Claude is not the only member in the tribe that obtains a draft card, but is the only one who does not burn his during the Be-In. This makes it so that Claude’s focus in the second act is on what to do. Being drafted into the Vietnam war goes against all of Claude’s beliefs and values. Berger suggests that Claude immigrate up to Canada but Claude never makes it. Claude dies before he is able to escape his fate, appearing on stage in a uniform with a military hair cut, stating how “They got me.”
Claude is where all of the major changes in the film version start. They rip Claude from his family, that of the tribe, and present him as an outsider in the film. By doing this, Claude is not a loved member of the cast but a mechanism for the plot. He is who meets the hippies and does not how to interact with them. He is the one who leaves an impression upon George Berger, even though they only knew each other for the span of several days. He is the one who desperately falls for Sheila, a bastardized version of her stage counter part. Berger knows of Claude’s feelings and wants to see his friend once again, so sparks the road trip to the boot camp that Claude goes to several months after his visit to New York City. Berger gets Claude to sneak from Boot Camp, staying in his stead, and accidentally gets shipped off to Vietnam with no training. The film ends with Claude living and Berger dying.
Two Separate Entities
While the film is a wonderful story, it should be separated completely from the musical. It is important that a viewer thinks of them as two separate entities, as both are good in their own right, but once compared, one wonders why the producers felt the need to change nearly everything. The source material, that of the stage show, was already drastically popular and thus had a guaranteed audience. The most logical explanation would be that they wanted a more concrete plot line. But one does wonder if the producers of the film also wanted a watered down version of the source material. The film is not as explicit as that of the stage show. The audience does not get the impression that Claude, Berger and Sheila are one entity. They appear to be a romantic trio in the stage show, with Jeannie even making a comment to the audience how “Berger is hung up on Everything and Claude is hung up on a cross between Berger and Sheila.” Woof’s apparent sexuality is watered down for the film as well, with Woof making the comment he’d not kick Mick Jagger out of his bed as an apparent in joke. In the stage show, Woof means this statement and appears to have not come to full grasp with his sexual interests, as he is at the very least bisexual. Nudity also does not appear on as large a scale in the film as it does in the stage show. The first act ends with every stage member undressing during the Be-In, after burning the draft cards. All of these elements come together and can be viewed, from at least some perspective, as a watering down of the stage show for the film audiences of the 1970s. Which is a true shame and makes me really yearn for an actual remake of Hair on film. I normally do not support remakes but I feel as if the stage show deserves a chance to be portrayed as it truly is and that it’d be well received in our modern age.
Additional Materials
I discovered the song ‘Going Down’ while I was at the show. Of course there were other songs that I hadn’t heard before but this was the one I particularly enjoyed. I liked it so much I might include it in the final show, where I finally get the chance to play music from Hair.
One really cool thing that Hair does as a stage show is the cast invites the audience on stage to dance with the cast. While dancing, everyone on stage sings a rendition of ‘Let the Sunshine In.’ Not willing to pass up that chance, my roommate and I rushed for the stage once the show was over to participate. What I was not expecting was to find myself in a video online the next day. The video is located here.
Leave a comment