Theater Hair In Central Park

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Michael Giltz: Theater: Hair In Central Park http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/theater-emhairem-in-centr_b_117739.html [4/5/2009 1:49:45 PM] APRIL 5, 2009 HOME POLITICS MEDIA BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT LIVING STYLE GREEN WORLD CHICAGO COMEDY 23/6 VIDEO BLOGGER INDEX ARCHIVE Make HuffPost Your HomePage Get Email Alerts Twitter: Follow Us BIG NEWS : Angelina Jolie | Madonna | Chris Brown & Rihanna | Paul McCartney | More... LOG IN | SIGN UP Michael Giltz BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index Theater: Hair In Central Park Posted August 8, 2008 | 12:34 PM (EST) Read More: Broadway , Central Park, Draft , Hair , Iraq War , Musicals, Rock And Roll , Theater , Vietnam , Entertainment News Central Park is the perfect setting for a revival of that instant time capsule of a musical, Hair . Central Park was the setting for a Be-In and itdoesn't take long to get into the right hippiedippie mood: some audience members show upfor the free show wearing tie-dyed shirts andsome kids even have their faces painted withpeace symbols and the such. I never realized itbut theater kids must LOVE Hair -- they get to dance around and improvise their asses off and interact with the audience and beg for attention. In short, they get to do what actors love to do,especially under the vigorously entertaining direction of Diane Paulus. As a free concert in theperfect setting (extended through September 14, with Christopher J. Hanke taking over forJonathon Groff, who had a prior commitment), Hair is a lot of fun. But it's not a lot of show. It's more of a revue with a paper-thin storyline tacked on. The book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot are serviceable with a few knockout numbers overshadowing the mundane ones. Is it still relevant? Nope, and that's where the poignancy lies -- Hair is obsessed with the war and the draft and worries itself sick over the fate of the charmingly innocent Claude (an impressive Jonathan Groff), a goofball who pretends to be from Manchester, England but knows he's about to be dragged into the army. Today, people don't take to the streets to protest the war because there is no draft. There are also no flag-covered caskets or dead bodies -- they're kept out of sight by a shameful and smart Bush administration, which makes the tableau at the end of this show all the more shocking. Wars produce young dead people? You wouldn't know it from watching the news. But the theatrical questions remain: is Hair a good musical and should it transfer to Broadway? The first act is fairly brisk and entertaining. Songs like "Sodomy" and "Black Boys" (from act two) have lost their shock value but they're still amusing. Each tune gives a new hippie a chance to shineand the cast makes the most of it. At the center of it all are Claude and Berger (played by a very fitWill Swenson). Berger is -- how to put this? -- kind of a dick, treating most everyone around him Be the First to Submit This Story to Digg Like this story? Get Alerts of big news events. Enter your email address Popular Stories on HuffPost Fashion Face-Off! Michelle Obama And Carla Bruni-Sarkozy Finally Meet In France (VIDEO, PHOTOS, POLL) *Video, poll and slideshow Levi Johnston TalksSafe Sex With Tyra Banks (VIDEO) ***UPDATE*** 8:30pm: People.com is reporting that Sarah Palin has issued... Oscar de la Renta Slams Michelle Obama's Buckingham Outfit As Major Designers FeelIgnored While Michelle Obamahas made lesser... Verena von Pfetten 7 Lessons To BeLearned From Carla Bruni So here's the thing.There's no shortage of articles dedicated to thatcertain je ne... Huff TV Arianna Discusses MichelleObama's "Fantastic" Style On CBS' Michael Giltz: Theater: Hair In Central Park http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/theater-emhairem-in-centr_b_117739.html [4/5/2009 1:49:45 PM](except Claude) with disdain. Swenson captures his magnetism and doesn't try and soften Berger's sharp edges. And clearly he and Groff decided to emphasize the attraction between their characters made explicit in the story. In this production, the supposed third part of their triangle -- the girl they both love along with each other -- barely registers at all and whenever there's a moment to improvise, Groff and Berger hug and touch and run their hands through each other's hair. Works for me. I'm no fan of intermissions -- for countless plays and musicals, intermissions are both dramatically awkward and an excuse to pad out a show that should be shorter. Hair is moving along just fine until the intermisson stops the fun. Then the second act begins with a looooooong acid trip that throws in all sorts of tiresome political humor, though even calling it political humor is a stretch -- it's just a series of random vignettes involving Abraham Lincoln and the like that has absolutely no bite and doesn't even really try. If anything makes Hair dated, it's this sequence, a subpar bit of Laugh-In humor. Cut this sequence and the intermission and you could enjoy Hair more for the trifle it is. It's wise not to update this show or make it relevant because it just wants to have fun. Groff is a beguiling lead, especially on his showstopper "I Got Life." His breakthrough in Spring Awakening was clearly only the beginning for him. And Swenson has charisma to burn. If only the finale were braver: if Swenson and the other hippies actually had to DEAL with the fact that Claude was joining the military instead of just ignore it, the show would gain even more dramatic weight. Sidestepping that emotional moment (will the hippies condemn Claude or embrace him?) was perhaps too risky for an era when people confused the soldiers with the mission. But for all those caveats, Hair has two big numbers that sweep away all objections. The opener, "Aquarius," is given a magestic reading by Patina Ranea Miller. She strides across the grass and the hippies clamber over the walls and come up through the ground like children following the PiedPiper. And the finale is the irresistible "Let The Sun Shine In." You see a dead soldier lying on aflag and the Tribe sings its plaintive, simple request and you think, "Why not? That's not asking somuch, is it?" And they slip offstage into the darkness and you can hear their voices softly comingup from beneath the seats and it's quiet and dark and sad. And then they come back out, burst intothe song again and invite the audience to jump onstage and dance with them. If any show earns theright for a crowd-pleasing gesture like this one, it's surely Hair in Central Park. On Broadway, I think you'd feel like a tourist gawking at a reenactment from the past, like those colonial villages.But here, under the stars, with a bunch of sexy, talented actors, Hair can win over the most cynical, if only for a song or two. What other critics are saying:Ben Brantley of The New York Times said, ""Hair" registers as an eloquent requiem not only for the idealism of one generation but also for the evanescence of youth itself. It's still the "tribal love- rock" celebration it was always advertised as being. But in suggesting the dawning age of Aquarius is already destined for nightfall, this production establishes the show as more than a vivacious period piece. "Hair," it seems, has deeper roots than anyone remembered." Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News gives it 3 1/2 stars out of 5 and said the show certainly has aged and lost its power to shock but "Good tunes are timeless, however, and despite afew duds, "Hair" is filled with them. Until the end of August, it's the coolest place in the city to letdown your hair." Frank Scheck of the New York Post gives it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars and said,"The rousing revival that opened last night at the Delacorte - 40 years after it first played the Public Theater - feels as fresh now as it did then, thanks to the sheer energy of its sexy young ensemble." David Rooney of Variety said the director "embraces the organic, free-flowing feel and spontaneous atmosphere of the show. Making extensive use of the aisles to connect actors andaudience, she creates something akin to a happening in the park that honors the spirit of themusical and the liberating time in which it was conceived while subtly identifying its ongoingrelevance." But he worries about heading to Broadway: "A transfer of this production remains adistinct possibility, but welcome as that prospect is, it's hard to imagine the same thrill beneath aproscenium as the one being generated under the night sky in Central Park." Brian Scott Lpton of Theatermania.com said, "But tackling this often tricky, often joyous, and occasionally heartbreaking piece of theater four decades after its Off-Broadway debut comes complete with an obstacle course of directorial challenges. Fortunately, Diane Paulus overcomes "Washington Unplugged" Arianna was on CBS' "Washington... Alex Leo The "Real Housewives Of New York City" Flowchart Of Hate I'm a little embarrassed tolove this show as much as... "BRUNO" TRAILER! Calamity, African Babies, ChaseScenes And More (NSFW VIDEO) IT'S HERE! The trailer for this July's Sacha BaronCohen... NATO Leaders Focus On Afghanistan, But Most Reject Obama's Plea For Troops (SLIDESHOW) STRASBOURG, France — On the eve of the NATO... 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Least Wasteful Cities In America (SLIDESHOW) It's great to love the cityyou live in, and better toMichael Giltz: Theater: Hair In Central Park http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/theater-emhairem-in-centr_b_117739.html [4/5/2009 1:49:45 PM] Michelle Obama's Clothing Has Sean Hannity All Out OfSorts RICHARD POPLAWSKI,Pittsburgh Gunman, Kills 3Police Officers Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld: DoesIran Harbor Osama binLaden? John Demjanjuk, Ohio ManAccused Of Being NaziGuard, Avoids Deportation Comments 0 Pending Comments 0 Comments are closed for this entry Reality Star Jade Goody Buried In Lavish... Robert De Niro Nanny Sues For $40,000 Demi Moore's Twitter-Based Suicide Intervention SNL: Madonna And Angelina In Weekend Update...the hurdles in her crowd-pleasing and remarkably satisfying Shakespeare in the Park production at the Delacorte Theatre." The reliably acerbic John Simon of Bloomberg.com counters all this by saying, "This unstructured, baggy monster of a musical, though pleasant on first exposure, does not bear too much reviving and closer scrutiny." More in Entertainment... HuffPost Stories Surging Right Now Buy a link here Sponsored Links My Teeth Are Now White Read the trick, discovered by a mom, to turn yellow teeth white. BellasTeeth.com The Most $100K+ Jobs Search 72,384 Jobs that pay over $100,000 at TheLadders.com. www.TheLadders.com "My Teeth Are so White" Read the trick, discovered by a mom, to turn yellow teeth white. CathysTeeth.com Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to View Comments: Newest First Expand All You must be logged in to reply to this comment. 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Theater Hair In Central Park

📄 Theater Hair In Central Park

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