youtube has a video of GWU performing HAIR -- the real HAIR!
if you've heard the soundtrack or saw the movie, you couldn't guess what an uproar HAIR caused.
it went all the way to the supreme court!
frontal nudity, obscenity, flag desecration for starters.
banned in Boston and nearly everywhere else in the world, too.
(i did manage to see it in Boston the one pre-opening performance before it shut down).
the movie of HAIR is cleaned up and has good music and beautiful people, but it just doesn't have the raw energy, joy of life and in-your-faceness that make the real thing so thrilling. not to mention the missing songs.
HAIR's the explosive expression of a dream of a better world of love, joy, and beauty, back when the government was trying to kill us, before iphones, before AIDS, 'the pill' was new, before women realized...well, but you know all that.
the GWU performance on youtube is like going to the theatre and having really bad seats for a really good show.
even so, it's wonderful to see it as it should be, young, raunchy, rude, crude, defiant, youth in love with life, body, self, and each other.
the music is great, especially if you already know the words. i wish their audio-visual department had been up to par with their theater department!
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