The
Arkansas Repertory Theatre
’s rendition of the rock musical “Hair” is an exuberant blast. Boasting an extremely committed ensemble cast with strong voices all around, it’s one of those productions where the actors seem so smitten and entangled with one another that it’s impossible not to imagine them remaining inseparable after the curtain closes.
Originally premiering on Broadway in 1968 (and set around the same time), “Hair” is pretty much unsummarizable. The play’s closest thing to a main character is Claude (Hank von Kolnitz), a young man wrestling with whether or not to acquiesce to the Vietnam War draft, but “Hair” is much more interested in the general milieu of his friend group, a collection of bright-eyed, free-loving, drug-enthusiastic hippie kids — the tribe — who’ve turned New York City into their playground. Plot is put on the back burner in favor of an assemblage of cultural snapshots in song. The soundtrack is vast, 44 brief numbers somehow packed into a little over two hours.
While “Hair” is always thoroughly entertaining, I found myself curious about the play’s tone. Because the characters are so often portrayed as laughable — either because they’re naively softhearted or hedonistically rebellious — it’s hard to take their political engagement seriously. Whether this is an inescapable fact baked into the source material or a choice intentionally made by The Rep is beyond my knowledge, but I thought it did these fictional people a disservice. For instance, I badly wanted to be invested in Claude’s dilemma about Vietnam, but I needed more solemn access to his interior life in order to do so.
The question of political sincerity is not entirely ignored by “Hair,” though. At one point, a member of the tribe named Sheila — played by Ava Delaney, arguably the show’s best singer and actor — returns from a protest inspired and ready to pump up her friends, only to have them rowdily dismiss her for being too genuine. For a moment, she’s angry and distraught.
Is peace, love and revelry getting in the way of them actually getting shit done? Is all this bohemian stuff just a performance — an outfit that can be taken on and off whenever it’s convenient — or is it a calling of grand importance? Sheila doesn’t explicitly ask these questions, but you can almost see it on her face. The crisis doesn’t last for long, but I wish it had. It’s a weighty enough predicament that it could have animated the entire show.
Note: The Rep’s “Hair” contains a brief moment of significant nudity. If that sounds like something that might offend your sensibilities, maybe sit this one out.
“Hair” continues at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre through July 27. Performance times are 7 p.m. Tue.-Thu.; 8 p.m. Fri.; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sat.; and 3 p.m. Sun.; and
tickets
range from $20-$65.
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