MOUNT VERNON — Students in Cornell College’s Lyric Theatre weren’t yet born when “Hair” made its Broadway debut in 1968, but in February they’ll stage the musical that grew out of the emotional turmoil of the Vietnam War years and has startling relevance today.
“Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” opens Thursday, Feb. 6, at 8 p.m. in Cornell’s Kimmel Theatre adjoining Armstrong Hall. Performances continue Feb. 7 and 8 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 9 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. For ticket reservations, call 895-4293.
Cornell decided to do “Hair” shortly after 9/11, when conscientious objection was part of the campus buzz.
“Since then, the looming Middle East crisis has only added to the anti-war sentiment that re-emerged in the days after the Sept. 11 tragedy,” says director Scott Olinger, chair of Cornell’s department of theatre and communications studies.
The similarities between 2003 and 1968 “are present on our minds constantly. It’s helpful for students to have a parallel situation by which to examine the musical,” he says. “We’re trying to keep an eye on what’s going on. We have a lot of students with mixed feelings. They don’t support war but they don’t support Saddam Hussein.”
“Hair” examines the period of intense social and political change in the ’60s and questions society’s views on morality, sex, drug usage, war, racism and violence. The musical centers on a group of New York hippies, and in particular on Claude, who is torn between his peaceful ideals and his duty to his country. “Hair” is known for the Top 10 hits it spawned (“Hair,” “Age of Aquarius,” “Let the Sunshine In”) as well as its attacks on the Lyndon Johnson administration. “Hair” contains violence, sexual situations, drug usage, profanity and nudity.
“Frankly, it’s been a non-issue,” Olinger says of the scene ending the first act, when the cast is nude. “It’s amazing that so many people focus on 30 seconds of dimly lit nudity rather than the drug usage, or songs titled ‘Sodomy.’
“The (Cornell) administration has been wonderfully supportive of us,” Olinger says. He notes the nudity “represents a return to innocence that Claude struggles to find in his crisis of faith, which is at the heart of ‘Hair.'”
Sophomore Joe Baker of Walworth, Wis., plays Claude. Baker’s mother loaned the Cornell production a playbill from the off-Broadway “Hair” in 1971, news clips and pamphlets from the Vietnam years and letters from a friend serving in the war.
“She is very excited about my role, because ‘Hair’ deals with the way she led her life in college. She protested war very strongly,” Baker says. “I am very against the building war overseas. I am not sure if I would be as strong as Claude, taking such a strong stand to fight for his country.”
The Cornell production will include some references to the situation in the Middle East. For example, cast members will carry protest posters that read “LBJ” on one side and “GWB” on the opposite side.
“We’ll try to wait until the end of the play to draw those parallels,” Olinger says. “Maybe we’ll stage a peace protest in front of the theater, but I want to feel out the climate first.”