Review: HAIR: THE AMERICAN TRIBAL LOVE-ROCK MUSICAL at Garden Theatre

In the lobby of the Garden Theatre, a ticket taker for the Short North Stage’s production of HAIR: THE AMERICAN TRIBAL LOVE-ROCK MUSICAL greeted theater goers with a welcome and a warning: “Enjoy the show … until the second act.”

HAIR, which opened May 8 and runs through June 9 at the Garden Theatre (1187 N. High Street in downtown Columbus), is a perfect flashback to the 1960s. Like the decade it is set in, the Edward Carignan-directed piece starts with the wide-eyed wildness of unrestrained free love and drugs set to a great rock-and-roll soundtrack. And like the 1960s, it can’t avoid the heartbreak of the social turbulence and violence of that time.

With lyrics written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot, HAIR is not your typical linear, point A to point B musical. It roughly ambles through vignettes of the members of a “tribe” of hippies in New York City.

The plot is loosely framed around Claude (Michael Lepore), who recently receives his draft card and must decide between burning it or enlisting in the Army for the Vietnam War. He pretends to destroy it, but his friend Berger (Mitch Gray) reveals Claude just torched his library card. Lepore captures the essence of a man torn between his duty to his country and his loyalty to his group of friends. Looking like Brad Pitt in the middle of an 18-month bender, Gray is perfect as Claude’s live-for-the-moment counterpart. 

But mostly HAIR is about the tribe and their relationships within the group and the world around them. One needs a Venn Diagram to decipher who is with whom. Claude and Berger are both involved with Sheila (Israeljah Reign), who seems to be more enamored with Berger but also has strong feelings for Claude. Runaway Jeanie (Melissa Hall), who is pregnant from a one-nighter with a “speed freak,” is in loved with Claude while Woof (Louis Hansen) is Berger’s partner when he is not with Sheila.

It sounds like chaos, but HAIR is not about being conventional. It’s about a community trying to make sense of the world around it. The world doesn’t understand their tribe and the tribe doesn’t understand the world.

Like the 1960s, HAIR is often remembered for its music. Its soundtrack is a tie-dye, dayglow masterpiece with trippy songs like “Aquarius,” “Good Morning Starshine,” “Hair,” and “Let the Sun Shine In” as well as less familiar numbers like “Initials,” “Air,” and “Black Boys/White Boys.”

Musical director Jonathan Collura provides its audience with an arsenal of powerful singers such as Jeff Fouch, Lisa Glover, Rachel Hertenstein, Arriah Ratanapan, Ryan Shreve, Tirzah Washington, and Nicholas Wilson, many of whom have headlined other SNS productions.

Collura also conducts and plays keyboards for the seven-piece band of Will Mayer (percussion), Tom Regouski (reeds), Drew Martin (bass), Ben Guegold (trumpet) and Drew Stedman and Zsolt Dvornik (guitars) which gives the show a vibrant groove.

Ambitious stage design by Carignan and Ray Zupp and media design by Fyrebird Media transform the show into an experience rather than something that is passively observed. Selected members of the audience are on stage with the action while parts of the stage also extend into the audience. Cast members race up the aisles and interact with the crowd throughout the show.

HAIR is not for everyone. Some might be shocked by its scenes of full frontal nudity, language, and drug use. (In fact, audience members are asked to put stickers over the lens of their cellphones to keep them from photographing some of the more risqué scenes.)

And yet, HAIR is as important as it is subversive. Without it, shows such as RENT, ANGELS IN AMERICA, and HAMILTON probably wouldn’t stand a chance to make it to Broadway.

In the song, “My Conviction,” Margaret Mead, (a cross dressing tourist played by Ryan Shreve), supports the free lifestyle Claude and the others are experiencing: “I wish every mom and dad would make a speech to their teenagers and say kids, be free, be whatever you are, do whatever you want to do, just so long as you don't hurt anybody.”

 The lines echo the words of Margaret Mead, a noted American cultural anthropologist who compared the hippie movement to other cultures. Mead wrote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Claude and his tribe couldn’t agree more.

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