Hair That's a Fright

What is the deal with the musical Hair? I've now seen two productions of it. Based on my limited knowledge, I don't think I've ever encountered a show that varies this much from theatre to theatre. Does the same character ever sing the same song in two different productions?

After falling in love with the Åbo Svenska Teater production (read my review) and hearing lots of praise for the other current Finnish production, directed by Maarit Pyökäri, I went to Lahden kaupunginteatteri with great expectations. While ÅST has reconstructed the whole show to follow the movie and the director's own ideas, the Lahti Hair resembles the original Broadway production. I was excited to see what the original was like.

Such useless excitement.

The positives first: the cast was energetic and seemed to be enjoying what they were doing. There were some beautiful singing performances, I especially enjoyed Elsa Saisio's Easy to Be Hard. Timo Välisaari gave a good performance as Claude.

Then the negatives.

The worst thing was how emotionally empty the production felt. It didn't bore me, but I felt no emotional highs or lows. Some of the songs were a little touching on their own, but the piece as a whole didn't make me feel anything. The ending medley didn't cheer me up when I never felt the down in the first place.

The emotion in the story is strongly tied with the character of Claude. Here, despite the actor being talented, I didn't feel sad about Claude's ultimate fate. The going to war part was too brief. Before that, the characters didn't really feel like an intimate group – would they really miss Claude? I didn't feel a true sense of friendship or love in between any of the characters.

Partially, the space and choreography are to blame for the show feeling distant. Lahden kaupunginteatteri has an unfortunately big stage. Sitting in the third row, the actors still seemed far away. To fill the stage, Hair was thoroughly choreographed, which left little possibilities for natural-like action in between the Tribe members. The dancing did look nice, though.

I felt uncomfortable about the production using face paint to create the black Tribe members. Sadly there aren't many non-white actors in Finland – but after seeing how they managed to find an ethnically diverse cast in ÅST, I have to wonder: would it have been impossible here? Painting people black probably wasn't frowned upon in 1960s' Finland, but it feels like something that shouldn't be done in 2013.

Some might oppose moving the songs around like they did in Turku, but I think a complete restructuring did a great deal of good there. ÅST's piece sure doesn't much resemble the original Broadway Hair, but it doesn't feel jarringly dated, either. The Lahti one, with nearly all of the scenes intact and in the original order, does. The bits relating to US history, seen via the eyes of the 60s, felt very distant from my young Finnish perspective.

I almost missed the old Finnish translation, the revised one sounded too modern at times when the production felt so stuck in the 60s otherwise. Weirdly enough, reading a description about the 1969 Finnish Hair, I get the feeling the 2013 Lahti Hair actually toned down the scenes dealing with homosexuality and sexuality in general. The scenes dealing with racial inequality, which sadly still aren't irrelevant, turned into a joke when performed by white actors in black masks.

The production did try bringing in something new: the whole show being a blind Vietnam veteran's, played by Heikki Harma a.k.a Hector, flashback. I liked the idea, but it would've still needed some fleshing out and refining. As it was, I couldn't properly connect the veteran with the events. But thumbs up for the idea!

All in all, I have to ask one thing: which message did the Lahti Hair try to convey? I only saw two hours of hippies taking drugs and singing, with no story, no message, no feeling. Maybe catchy tunes and energetic choreography are enough for someone looking for a nostalgia trip. I, however, got nothing out of it.

It's possible Hair isn't my cup of tea in general and I only liked the ÅST Hair because it's so different from the original, almost a different show. But even so, I'll say that if you want to see Hair in Finland, skip this one and catch Åbo Svenska Teater's production while it's still playing.

Photos by Tarmo Valmela.
Reijo Paukku's book Hippimusikaali HAIR ja Tampereen Popteatterin tarina used as a source.