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Volume CXXXI, Number 22 |
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Hair: a tale of rock 'n' roll, rebellion
HANNAH DEAN
STAFF WRITER
The year is 1968 - nothing is sacred and everything is being questioned.
After the cast slowly wanders on stage, having mingled with the awaiting
audience, the play begins. Claude, played by Matt Peters '04, is carried
out onto center stage. Still meditating, he is set down and, as the characters
writhe about him in the eerie half darkness, a lock of his hair is cut
and sacrificed.
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| The cast of Hair rehearses for the big night in Wish Theater. The play centers on the carefree yet politically charged times of the late 1960s. (Liesl Finn, Bowdoin Orient) |
"Hair" is about questing the system, about rebellion and revolution,
and about trying to find answers when it seems that none are to be found.
Protesting, picketing, and drugs are the pastimes of the youth of America.
In a scene early in the play, characters carry signs bearing messages
such as "Fuck Bush" and "War is bad for all living things."
In the wake of September 11 and the overwhelming patriotism that it inspired
throughout America, this production of "Hair" has heightened
significance. The musical dares, as it did when it was originally produced,
to question blind patriotism as a monster that can be dangerous and even
deadly.
While "Hair" does indeed challenge the system, it is also highly
entertaining. Not only does the cast fill their roles well, each character
is truly portrayed as a brooding individual, not simply as a token hippy
delivering lines.
After Claude is brought in by the tribe, the production slowly warms up
with "Aquarius," a musical number proclaiming that "This
is the dawning of the age of Aquarius" when "peace will guide
the planets / And love will steer the stars."
The opening number is lead by Jeanie, played by Mollye Galikowski, a
pregnant woman concerned with the environment. Galikowski lends energy
to the part and helps open the musical with a sense of abandonment - as
yet unhindered by darker underbelly of life in the Tribe.
The opening song is full of a sense of freedom, "harmony and understanding,"
but very soon the dynamic of the Tribe is revealed as not wholly utopian
nor is their situation entirely unhindered by the outside world.
Hud, played by the talented Robin Smith '05, sings the disturbing song,
"I'm Black" in which she describes herself as "a colored
spade, a nigger…a jungle bunny" and a slew of other racial slurs.
Smith's energy and the quiet rage that she conveys in performing this
musical number is extraordinary - indeed she is one of the strongest characters
of the production.
The character's introductory musical numbers set the mood of the "us
vs. them" mentality that maintains the foundation of the Tribe's
rebellious movement against a society that has infringed on their freedoms.
However, even this mentality is questioned as Claude, having been drafted,
struggles over how best to be an American citizen. Looking to God at the
end of act one, Claude asks the simple yet overwhelming questions, "Why
do I live? Why do I die?"
From the amazing cast to the band of musicians that pays tribute to the
auditory pleasures of the 1960's, "Hair" is a highly entertaining
show and not one to be missed.
"Hair" is being presented by the Masque and Gown of Bowdoin College and will be performed April 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28, 2002 at the Wish Theatre.