How Hair Transformed London TheatreApart from live theatre, two of my other passions in life are traveling and history.
For me, London is one of those spectacularly thrilling destinations to visit on a routine basis because it's both steeped in history and has exceptional theatre. Every now and then, those passions dovetail nicely like they did last week when I took in a performance of the current
Hair revival.
While I don't think I'll ever quite get used to having to spend the equivalent of $5 simply for a stage programme (there are no complimentary Playbills to be found), better productions at least ensure that they're chock full of informative nuggets. Such is the case of the
Hair programme, which describes in great detail how the earliest transfer of this show nearly 32 years ago may not have occurred at all.
The programme describes how the show first opened in London on September 27, 1968, exactly one day after the formal abolition of theatre censorship in the United Kingdom by an Act of Parliament known as the
Theatres Act of 1968.
Prior to that, since 1737, the government mandated that scripts must be licensed for performance by the
Lord Chamberlain's Office, which could censor virtually anything it felt was against common decency, including -- initially -- political satire. The office exercised that power forcefully, prohibiting any play "for the preservation of good manners, decorum or of the public peace."
With such strict censorship maintaining a tight grip on British norms right up through 1968,
Hair could never have opened the way it did at the
Shaftesbury Theatre on that September night without that Act of Parliament. Indeed, the musical's opening -- with stars
Tim Curry,
Elaine Paige and
Paul Nicholas -- was delayed until the laws changed.
Hair forever altered the course for theatrical expression in the United Kingdom. Not only was it the first rock musical to ever freely discuss drugs and "Sodomy" on stage, but it was also the first with full frontal nudity and a mixed race cast. The show enjoyed 1,998 performances, and it only closed when the ceiling of the Shaftesbury Theatre collapsed.
And now you know the rest of the story on why
Hair remains a milestone in London theatrical history.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
In keeping with the new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations that unfairly discriminate against bloggers, who are now required by law to disclose when they have received anything of value they might write about, please note that I have received nothing of value in exchange for this post.Labels: Freedom of Expression, Hair, History, Law, London, Musical, Travels, West End
Nixon: Knowing What I Know And When I Knew itAs a student of history and political science (
those were my majors in college, as opposed to theatre, communications or English) who also had an earlier political career in both Washington DC and my childhood home state (Wisconsin), I naturally gravitate toward political theatre. After all, what could be more theatrical than the art of politics? (Most of the real thing
is rather bad, isn't it?!)
So it's against that backdrop that I confess to you the Broadway play I'm most looking forward to seeing this spring is
Frost/Nixon, starring
Michael Sheen as television talk show host/gadfly
David Frost and
Frank Langella as the disgraced
U.S. President.
Personally, as much as I hate to admit to it, I'm old enough to remember how devastating the damning truth of the
Watergate crisis was on this country, as bit after bit of new information slowly dribbled onto the front pages of newspapers and hovered like a dark cloud over the nation for what seemed like an eternity.
Yes, I remember watching the Senate's Watergate hearings and listening to individuals like
John Dean coming before the committee and divulging details of the cover-up, as well as what Richard Nixon knew and when he knew it. I remember the Constitutional crisis that developed over the White House's attempts to thwart the investigation by claiming executive privilege. I remember Nixon on the verge of becoming the second U.S. President to be impeached by the House for high crimes and misdemeanors And I certainly remember watching Nixon announce to a heartsick nation that he would resign the office of the Presidency on August 9, 1974. What had become a long national nightmare stretching over two years was finally in its final hours.
Three years later, after the non-elected President
Gerald Ford was ousted by
Jimmy Carter from the White House -- in part because of his pardon of the former President -- Nixon reemerged, ready to reclaim his legacy via his Administration's most positive initiatives (détente with the Soviet Union, resumption of dialogue with Mainland China, etc.), but he needed a forum for his redemption.
Enter David Frost, a British talk show host known as much -- or perhaps more -- for his womanizing, navel-gazing ways as for his journalistic prowess. I vividly recall the media hype surrounding the actual Frost interviews of Nixon and the manner in which both were seeking some level of redemption.
In my mind, that provides the type of riveting story you simply can't make up. In an era where there were just three commercial television networks (ABC, CBS and NBC), virtually no cable television and certainly no
new media like the Internet, the Nixon interviews became events unto themselves.
So, one week prior to making my personal pilgrimage to the
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre to see the dramatization surrounding the interviews, I have been awed not only by the positive
reviews and
buzz, but also by stories like
Michael Riedel's in yesterday's New York Post, which heralds this as actor Frank Langella's "history-making moment."
Simply put, I can't wait to see this show. While I know I'll be retracing my formative thinking from over thirty years ago, I also know that I'll likely leave that Broadway theatre with a fresh perspective on the man who so utterly disappointed and disgraced his nation more than a generation ago.
As a student of history, I'll certainly let you know what I think in an upcoming SOB Review. But I at least wanted to advise you in advance how that review will have been informed before I write it.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:Critics Acquit Frost/Nixon (April 23, 2007)
Frost/Nixon Ready For Broadway Close-Up Tonight (April 22, 2007)
Box Office: Theatregoers Don't Passover Broadway (April 9, 2007)
West End Transfer Of Frost/Nixon Opens This Evening (November 15, 2006)
Which British Hits Will Be Broadway-Bound? (September 20, 2006)
Critics Find Frost/Nixon to Be Unimpeachable (August 23, 2006)
London's Frost/Nixon Opens Tonight (August 23, 2006)
Sheen/Langella to Portray Frost/Nixon in London (June 2, 2006)
Labels: Background, Broadway, David Frost, Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon, History, Play, Richard Nixon
