How the Old Globe's 'Hair' musical — set in 1967 — is still as relevant in 2021 - The San Diego Union-Tribune

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In a few days, a multicultural sign-toting troupe of young people will gather in Balboa Park to protest war, racism, environmental destruction and government control. They’ll also sing, dance and get a little naked.

Tuesday marks the first preview performance of “Hair,” the 1967 counterculture musical opening the Old Globe’s 2021-22 season on the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre stage. It will be one of the first major Equity theater productions to open in the U.S. since the pandemic began last year.

The long-haired, free-spirited “Age of Aquarius” hippies in the musical may seem a relic of another age. But Old Globe artistic director Barry Edelstein said its characters’ efforts to create change, and the story’s message of hope and healing, make it the perfect show for reopening after a 17-month closure.

“‘Hair’ goes to some dark places, but ultimately, the sun shines in,” Edelstein said. “It’s a story about young people coming together convinced that they can build a better America — an America that truly fulfills its promise and its values. There’s an optimism to it, a forward-looking feeling, that just seemed to me exactly the note that we should sound after this terrible, painful, often ugly year-and-a-half.”

James Rado, left, and Gerome Ragni, who wrote the book and lyrics for the 1967 musical "Hair."

“Hair: the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” premiered in October 1967 at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre off Broadway and was later made into a 1979 film. It’s about a pansexual group of disillusioned New York 20somethings who bond over love, sex and drugs while protesting the status quo and the war in Vietnam. At its heart is a love triangle between three roommates: the free-spirited bon vivant Berger; hard-core protester Sheila, whose love for Berger is unrequited; and Claude, who secretly loves Sheila and is conflicted over whether to serve in Vietnam.

Back in 2008, the Public revived the show in an outdoor production directed by Diane Paulus at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. At the time, Edelstein was running the Public’s Shakespeare in the Park program and he saw how “Hair” ignited audiences. In December 2019, he announced plans to produce “Hair” inside the Old Globe Theatre in summer 2020, but the arrival of the pandemic forced the rethinking of when and how the show could be produced.

“There’s something about the material that just suits the open air. The emotions are big, extravagant, exuberant. The passions are huge,” Edelstein said. “The conceit of the Paulus production, as I remember it, is that the ‘tribe’ gathered in a park, so the whole thing felt organic and deliberate. And that’s pretty much why I thought of us doing it outside.”

“Hair” director and Globe artist-in-residence James Vásquez, 49, said his original conception for the 2020 indoor staging had the hippie tribe gathering in an underground space. That vision was inspired by his own experiences hanging out with club kids and drag queens in New York City subway stations during his late teens and 20s, first as a student the Juilliard School and later as a working actor.

Vásquez grew up in Escondido, the son of a long-haired Mexican poet, who decorated their family living room with pillows rather than furniture. After moving back to San Diego from New York 21 years ago, Vásquez met and later married his husband, filmmaker Mark Holmes. They live in the College area with their four dogs.

Vásquez was in New York on March 7, 2020, doing final callback auditions for “Hair” when the COVID crisis spiraled out of control. Five days later, the theater industry shut down. Since then, Vásquez has moved the play’s theatrical setting from an underground scene to the corner of an outdoor park, and his directorial concept has expanded in light of the 2020 social justice movement.

James Vásquez, director of "Hair" and artist in residence at The Old Globe.

“Every generation has a group of young people who start to wake up to the world they see and they want to change it,” Vásquez said. “In 1967, there were the race wars and the relationship battles, and those are all still here today. We’re celebrating sexuality and identity expression and also Black Lives Matter and what it’s like to not be a first-generation White American.”

Eleven of the 16 cast members in “Hair” are actors of color, and three of them are playing principal roles originally written for White actors. The role of Claude, a young Polish-American from Queens, is being played by Broadway performer Tyler Hardwick, who is of mixed race. Sheila is played by Broadway performer Storm Lever, who is Black (she’s a San Diego veteran of late, appearing in the Globe’s “Almost Famous” and the La Jolla Playhouse’s “Fly” and “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical”). And the gentle-natured character of Woof is played by Latinx actor Angel Lozada.

As a person of color himself, Vásquez said he has always cast shows with diversity in mind, because that reflects his own experience in the world. But audiences will see even more explorations of ethnicity in how the musical’s story is told. For example, the satiric song about blind patriotism to the American flag, “Don’t Put It Down,” will be sung by actors of color rather than the usual White actors.

When he was casting the show in early 2020, Vásquez said he wasn’t interested in hiring actors who were too polished or perfect at the auditions, because personal authenticity is so important in “Hair”: “We were looking for people who had fight in them and people who came into the auditions who clearly had something to say.”

On a weekday rehearsal in late July, Vásquez gradually worked through the first scene of the second act with the full cast, which includes San Diego actors Bethany Slomka, Luke Jacobs, Kevin Hafso-Koppman and Leo Ebanks. His directorial style is to lay out his plan for a scene and then listen to the actors for their ideas. But for “Hair,” he said the actors’ input has been especially valuable, since many of these young artists have concerns and experiences similar to those of the characters they’re playing.

A sketch by "Hair" costume designer David Israel Reynoso for Berger, played by Andrew Polec, at The Old Globe.

“Hair” costume designer David Israel Reynoso, said the long pandemic delay and the move to the Festival stage gave him time and freedom to think about his designs and how they’ll look and move in an outdoor setting.

“I was in a very different head space before, when we were going to have the show indoors. Then we had the opportunity to be on the Festival stage and suddenly we thought, let’s embrace some bigger gestures,” Reynoso said. “We are outside in the elements. If there’s a gust of wind or the movement of hair, that can create something wonderful and free and it connect us to the nature around us in a way that feels invisible.”

Because “Hair” is rarely produced in San Diego, the show’s free-wheeling style may be a shock for first-time viewers. Traditionally it has been staged with cast members mingling with the audience during the show and inviting show-goers onstage during the “Let the Sun Shine In” finale. It also celebrates drug use and sex, there’s an extended hallucinatory drug trip scene and the famous full-frontal group nude scene.

Vásquez said the full-cast disrobing at the end of the first act is important to the story because it represents the stripping away of others’ expectations in order to reveal the true self. But it will be done briefly and tastefully and with limited lighting. And just how much the actors will interact with the audience will depend entirely on the COVID safety rules in force at the time.

But the musical’s script is a call to action, and Vásquez said he won’t shy away from challenging the audience to think about the play’s message.

“We’re going to come back with a show that celebrates humanity and community and change. It’s OK to come and laugh and feel a little uncomfortable. We’ll not break away from our truths,” he said. “I hope that on their way out the door, people might look someone in the eye who they didn’t before. I love this show and the music is great, but we do want to change hearts and minds.”

Box office sales for “Hair” have been strong. Edelstein said the show’s first day of single-ticket sales was one of the best ever for any Globe musical. He attributes that success to the public’s desire to return to the theater, but also because “Hair” has broad appeal for older audiences who remember the ‘60s and younger audiences who are the yearning change-makers of tomorrow.

“We like to think that we’ve progressed, and of course in countless important ways, we have, but we’re still struggling with economic inequality, systemic racism, sexual hypocrisy, violence on the streets, strange foreign military entanglements ... the whole bitter stew of the late ‘60s,” Edelstein said. “The language we use about these issues may have changed, but their complexities have not ... ‘Hair’ is not a period piece. I think it retains all of its power precisely because America will always wrestle with its demons as it tries to be its best self.”

“Hair: the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical”

When: Previews Tuesday through Saturday; opens Aug. 15 and runs through Sept. 26 (show times vary between 7 and 8 p.m.)

Where: Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, Old Globe, 1363 Old Globe Way, San Diego

Tickets: $37 and up

Phone: (619) 234-5623

Online: theoldglobe.org

‘Hair’ trivia

Origins: New York actors, friends and sometimes lovers James Rado and Gerome Ragni teamed up with composer Galt MacDermot to write “Hair: the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical,” which premiered in October 1967 at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre off Broadway. It was inspired by Rado and Ragni’s experiences growing their hair, hanging out in the early ‘60s with hippies and atttending “Be-Ins.”

Broadway: “Hair” opened on Broadway in April 1968, starring co-writers Rado and Ragni as lead characters Claude and Berger, respectively. It was a smash, running for 1,750 performances.

Firsts: Hair is credited as the first Broadway show to feature a same-sex kiss and a rock ‘n’ roll score. It was also the first Broadway musical to feature full nudity. To get around a New York city ordinance banning nude actors moving onstage, the “Hair” actors stood still in a line for the brief scene each night.

Soundtrack: The Broadway cast recording for “Hair” was No. 1 on the Billboard charts for 13 weeks in 1969.

Film: “Hair” became a movie in 1979 but, with the hippie era and Vietnam war were long over, so it was more a retrospective of that moment in time. The film had several major plot changes and 10 fewer songs.

Tony Awards: Though nominated for two Tonys in 1969, “Hair” didn’t win. But Public Theatre’s revival in Central Park in 2008 won the 2009 Tony Award for Best Revival.

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