Jessica Nicholson

3/27/18

Response #2: Hair

Hair the Musical is a very controversial and stunning piece of theatre. Through its

untraditional characters along with it’s carefully thought out themes, Hair stood out in its time.

Most musicals around this time were cookie cutter. Boy meets girl, loses girl, gets girl back, is

the general idea of most musical theatre. Hair came around to counter that idea. Of course, shows

like Showboat had been around and slightly dealt with issues of the time at hand, but Hair did

this very differently. The men that wrote Hair, ultimately were writing the story of themselves. A

group of hippies who wanted to fight the government, a group that knew that what they were

saying was meant to shock and stun. This show was in your face, there was no sense in filtering

anything, all the lines got crossed. This wasn’t a normal thing seen done in theatre. People were

always very careful to not offend, censorship was very common. South Pacific dealt with

something slightly controversial with the song “You’ve got to be Carefully Taught”. This song

spoke about the idea that racism is taught, not just felt. The world influences people to look at

people with different skin than them a certain way. There was a high amount of backlash from

this song but ultimately it was kept in to keep the show true. But, this was nothing compared to

all the ideas that Hair brought up and dragged across stage.

Hair has a huge selection of controversial topics that it deals with. The first very

controversial moment in my opinion is Hud’s song, “Colored Spade”. This deals with the whole

country’s overwhelming racism, while stating all the offensive names used for African

Americans along with many stereotypes. The way this song is handled, it slaps the audience in
the face. It’s not expected but I also feel like it handles these ideas very well. The idea of racism

in the country is handled many other times, regularly through Hud and his lines. He is a strong

character that is funny but wise. Another big idea throughout was the whole Tribes defiance

toward the government. These kids are sick and tired of seeing their world being torn apart by

the ideas of war and the ignorance of these adults to what is becoming truly important. To the

characters in Hair all they want is love and peace across the world. In a way, these characters are

ignorant that things aren’t always that easy, but things are simpler than the government at this

time made things out to be.

At the end of the day, Hair has an intensely special place in my heart. I love seeing the

undeniable ways that this show parallels our world currently. Being a part of this show and

learning more and more about this show has only made me fall deeper in love with it. From the

incredible bond of the cast and crew, to the overwhelming ideas and topics that mean so much to

me, I just couldn’t think of a better show to be a part of.