Review of the Musical 'Hair'

[roguem]

So about two weeks ago I was in Oslo and saw 'Hair' at Det Norske Teatret (The Norwegian Theatre).
I mainly went to see my friend JC in the role of Hubert and to support him in his trade. 
I'm not the biggest musical buff, but I'm going to try and write a review at the request of miss_nightowl


From what I could gather they'd tried to  set it in modern times, but that only came into play in the opening where all the performers are sitting by a row of computers with their back against the audience. One by one they leave their seat and make their way to the front of the stage, and just start walking around on it, once they come to one of the edges or bump into one of the others they turn and walk in another direction. It kind of reminded me of a busy street full of strangers that don't want to look anybody in the eye. To busy with their own life to notice anybody else. 
When JC, or Hubert as he's called in the play reaches the edge again he bursts out singing 'Aquarius', which he did beautifully. I knew the boy could sing, but wow. As I've said in a previous post he put his full force into it that night.


As for the rest of the production, if I hadn't seen some parts of the film a few years back, and actually remembered some of it I don't think I would have been able to follow the plot to closely. There were some bits where I couldn't understand why it had been included and what it had to do with the rest of the story. Also I never felt that I fully got a grasp of the characters in the piece either. There's a love story involved, but I don't think I would have fully picked up on that if I hadn't remembered that part of the film.
I don't remember much of the movie, but I've been told the story there isn't to advanced either.
JC told me the day before that he wasn't happy with the coreography they were doing. Honestly, I could see that it wasn't anything traditional, to me it looked like something a bit experimental at times, but I thought it was cool. 
The reason to go and see it though, that's the music. The night I saw it there was a tremendous energy on the stage and it seemed like everybody was putting everything into their performance and were having a blast. That was really fun. My fave songs I think will have to be 'Aquarius' and 'Let the Sunshine in'. Just wonderful.

I have to admit that I also got a kick out of the fact that it was all performed in NyNorsk (NewNorwegian), which is the norwegian language that I speak and use.

That was my attempt at a review. Hope it gave some insight.

Comments

[lizamarie.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks for the review. I gotta say I love the clothes and the hair, looks so cool. From what I've read, and have listened on the original cast album, the movie is a bit different than the play. A lot more linear, more Hollywood-ized (gosh, is that a word?!) The play is as you said, more experimental, I think it tried to break the mold of what a play used to be back then.

It would've been so cool to see it. :)

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Your welcome, glad you liked it. :)
It looked very cool.

So the original is different too? Ok. Well, my friend said that the director came in the first day and threw out the original script. So they started from scratch, new dances and coreography. Which is also probably why the storyline kind of dissapeared.

Was just cool to get to see it.

[miss-nightowl.livejournal.com]

From what I could gather they'd tried to set it in modern times, but that only came into play in the opening where all the performers are sitting by a row of computers with their back against the audience.

What?
Wait.... what??
:o/

But the story´s about the hippies´ demonstration against the Vietnam war! That´s the whole point, and if you remove that....!

Erm... good for you if you liked it though. I have to say that bit would have completely bummed me out. Think I´ll stick to the movie which I think it Teh Greatest.

[roguem.livejournal.com]

No, that's the only modern bit. Other than that it's full on 60s. I just thought it was kind of an odd choice.

Well, I really enjoyed the music. :)

[miss-nightowl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was a bit odd... the music´s fab, yes!

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Like I said JC wasn't too happy with everything they'd done, but they all did good though.