So. I went to see "Hair" tonight at TUTS.

As one could expect from the most successful company producing Broadway musicals in the country, it was pretty. In fact, as we trouped into the theater, I thought and said "good set!" It was great.

The last time I saw a production of Hair, it was put on at my own Country Playhouse here in Houston. It was just over three years ago, and it was the first time it was produced on a large stage in Houston for many years.

TUTS' performance of Hair had everything going for it in terms of a musical performance - a complete, professional "orchestra," dazzling light display, a HUGE cast, everyone radio miked, beautiful costumes..

It is a show about the soul of a nation, performed in this instance without soul.

At a time when the country is again embroiled in pointless conflict, when politics polarizes the nation to the point of open hostility, when the government seemingly can't be trusted, when our very values as a nation are being questioned - what better time to field a soulful delivery of "Hair?"

We got the over-performed, "hey-look-at-me," no cohesiveness, staged without sense of soul, without sense of what makes an audience fall in love with the hippies, and breaks their hearts at the end of the show.
We got the show filled with young performers who have no heart, cannot connect with heartbreak, with rage, with fear for their lives, with futility, with creating a veneer of acceptance and love that sustains them in the face of a world they have rejected.

We get a Claude who is a magnificent technician in terms of his musical delivery, who cannot convey his angst, his bravado, his confusion, his hopelessness. We get a Burger who is just loud and obnoxious, rather than charming and filled with love while he taunts us, and teases our very belief structures. We get a cast of people who have no relationships with each other, save for their blocking.

The Country Playhouse production of Hair was staffed entirely by amateurs. Oh, yes, to be sure, everyone got paid. The actors received a stipend which did not cover the cost of fuel to drive to and from rehearsals. The director/choreographer and the musical director, working with budgets that wouldn't dress the cast of TUTS' production, got paid an embarassing sum for the creative and financial wizardry that they displayed. And the cast .. the cast, who received ten dollars for their performances, were ALIVE. They were the Vietnam era. They were the youth who knew that what was happening was wrong, and was reprehensible, and felt the only power that they had was to create a riotous, non-violent rebellion. They LOVED each other. They KNEW each other's back story. The BELIEVED in what they were doing together.

Claude started the show sitting, dead center of the stage. Just staring at the audience from behind mirrored sunglasses. For a half hour. With no prelude, he began to sing the opening words to the song in a clear, true voice. He began to rise, challenging the audience in the opening moments of the show with his message and his tone. At the moment that the chorus began, the cast EXPLODED into the theater. The harmonies were perfect, and unassisted electronically. Pitches were true, timbres rich and delicious, and the voices filled with the excitement of youth challenging existing structure with new ideas. The show moved fluidly from number to number, the story developed by the passion of each actor, and the clarity of their vocals.

TUTS cannot hope for that energy rippling through the nervous systems of their audiences. Their cast made no effort to connect with the audience. Even their in-audience interactions had the disconnect of rehearsed behavior.

EVERY number ripped into the consciousness of the audience (in the Country Playhouse version.) With just four instruments, the band created an authentic rock concert that perfectly supported the music. Number after number tore through the audience, taking them from laughter to outrage to reflection to revulsion to examination and back again. Even though they skipped the famous nude sequence, they took on buring of the flag, group love making, interracial relationships, drug use ..

TUTS did the nude scene. Yep. They sure did. In blue light. Well, they were probably nude. I think.

The show ends with Claude going into the Army, and then dying in Vietnam. TUTS whipped this concept over and over, making it the focus of Claude's hallucination sequence, and then making it the central piece of the closing number. Claude was shot, blown up, shot again, shot some more, got up, talked to the angels, shot a few more times, machine gunned, blown up again, and then shot. A few more times. The Valentine's Day massacre wasn't as violent. During the [should have been moving] closing number "Let the Sunshine In," Claude's uniformed body lies center stage, which the cast sings to the audience. TWO of the performers looked like they were trying to convey sadness. TWO. The rest were as exuberant as the cast of
Camp performing Grease.

At the moment of the show that TUTS should have been ripping the hearts of its audience out, I was wondering just where it was I had parked the car.

Okay, I didn't want to say this, but here it goes. If the cast of TUTS' "Hair" had put as much energy and authenticity into their performances as they had into their bows, maybe they would have had something.

Maybe.

Maybe if they had had the sense to hire Chris Ayres and Claudia Dyle, they would have had something.

Three and a half years ago, I came out at intermission on opening night of Hair at the Country Playhouse, and asked Claudia Dyle to marry me. I was nearly speechless, the show was so good. When Brandon Peters performed the hallucination sequence, I was captivated. When the cast each brought Brandon (Claude) a flower or a hug or a look as he entered the Army induction office in his uniform, I thought my heart would burst. Moments later, the cast members carried a casket out onto the stage, with an American flag draped over it. They BLED the song "Sunshine." My heart bled with them, and the tears streamed down my face.

THAT is what theater is about, folks. It's about MOVING people. It's about making them THINK and FEEL and INVOLVE themselves in the story you're telling from the stage. It's NOT about holding your arms just so, or having the best makeup, or the prettiest costumes, or the most dazzling set.

So, to the actors, producers and board members of TUTS - if you want to know what HAIR was supposed to be, talk to someone who saw it out at the run down, underfunded Country Playhouse. Everett Evans can wax euphorically about your show, but it doesn't mean SQUAT, because we in the theater know the truth. The actors in the Country Playhouse out-sang, out-danced, out-acted, out-emoted and out-did you, and they didn't get paid dirt. They all worked full-time jobs during the day to support themselves, and slogged through seven weeks of unpaid rehearsals. The musical director SHAMED you, TUTS, she worked with people who just WANTED to be in that show. She had less than an hour each night with them, and she made you look like you were a bunch of prima dons and donnas who can't control their own clutching grab at the spotlight to work with their fellow cast to produce the musical harmonies that make the songs from HAIR part of our culture forty years later. The director/choreographer/designer/producer had NO support, except for his unpaid stage manager and unpaid tech people, and he created an environment that brought out the nuances of HAIR, and so enhanced the story and energy that the audiences were brought to the brink of what their emotional systems could stand.

For $19 a seat, the audiences of the Country Playhouse got nearly 250 minutes of raw energy, emotion, grace, harmony, music, rebellion, humor, repugnance and thought.

For $77.25 a seat, TUTS owes its audience a life altering experience. Not a video.

To Chris, Claudia, Brandon, Scott, Johanna, Greg, Erin, Richard and everyone else that made HAIR at CPH something that still brings me chills .. thank you for being what real performers ARE, for your passion, commitment and energy.