Phone Call

Theatre Blogging Hamlet, I've come to the conclusion that most of the really good theatrical productions are hinge on one or two key moments -- the iconic scenes which everyone remembers and look forward to seeing in productions just to see how they'll be done this time. In Hamlet that's 'To Be Or Not To Be....' and Yorrick. In the musical Hair it's The Age of Aquirius. Last night I saw LIPA's second year students tackle both.

On the whole, Hair doesn't have much in the way of plot. It's a bit like Cats -- a series of characters from something called 'The Tribe' turn up and do their 'bit' before shuffling off in time to become boring. Somewhere in there though a hippy gets drafted to fight in Vietnam and is killed. Done well it can be electrifying as actors address and interact with the audience and talk about being in a theatre. It's not a work about inhibitions.

This wasn't the best I've seen (that would be the American production I saw at midnight during the Edinburgh festival in '98) but pretty close. The dancing was a real highlight, bodies above and below, up and under, the tribe working in unison, almost like a swarm together always. Considering this was just a three day engagement, the rehearsal time must have been lengthy. This is an ensemble piece and so it's difficult to pick out individual performaces. But there weren't too many weak links in the singing.

But. Some of the really good songs were wierdly stripped out and there was a them and us situation between the performers and audiences which worked against what was happening on stage. It's also quite a complicated musical sound wise and the guys on the mixing board weren't quite on form, drifting amplification in and out seemingly at random during some songs rendering vital lines inaudible, not to mention some sections of the band.

I was with my friend Chris, who's more of appriciator of musicals and he wasn't happy with way some of the songs were presented. He noted that they'd used Milos Foreman's film as a template which meant the shoehorning of 60s music into a 70s style -- and I understood what he meant. Aquirius came across as more of a standard musical number than the pop song I've seen it appear as in the past, and Let The Sun Shine In became an upbeat finale, not the mourful yet hopeful anthem for a lost friend. The ending was fudged too, with an important anti-war song lost making that subplot even more neglegable.

You're really wondering now how that nude scene went. Well, despite signs on the doors to the auditorium warning about 'full frontal nudity', the song from that scene Hare Krishna played out fully clothed as the performers disappeared into the back of the set, dry ice creeping upwards as they took their clothes off, keeping their dignity ...