The KC Rep’s Hair: Retrospection smartly braids old and new

When it premiered nearly 50 years ago, the musical Hair shocked audiences with its frank ode to free love and pharmacology. Theater has more than caught up since then, but you don’t need hippie nostalgia or a belief in astrology to feel the Aquarian Age dawn again at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. The Rep’s Hair: Retrospection is a large-scale musical with an intimate feel, and it connects a modern audience with songs that might otherwise have lingered past their expiration date.

Directed by Eric Rosen, Retrospection unites a youthful ensemble of Hair newcomers and Kansas City favorites with members of the Broadway casts (both the original and the 1977 revival). It’s devised theater that pushes the musical’s glimmering songs up against the grittier lived experiences of those who first performed them. The new libretto is part history lesson and part personal narrative, stitching together Vietnam War death tolls; quotes from show reviews; and behind-the-scenes stories from a time when actors were arrested at protests, injected with “performance enhancing” drugs, and awarded an extra $1.50 for appearing nude.

The Broadway veterans are predictably strong. Michael James Leslie and Zenobia elevate the brassy tunes with their rich voices, and Heather MacRae’s solos ache with a bittersweet edge.

But Rosen doesn’t sacrifice toe-tapping in the new, more restrained telling. Sam Pinkleton’s taut choreography is cleanly executed, with smart adaptations for a few cast members. Group number “Donna” sets the energy level early on, proving that the 1968 cast can keep up with the new blood. Robert I. Rubinsky is one of the most entertaining; he pops each pelvic thrust with sardonic relish. Larry Marshall contributes some strangely dignified butt-wiggling. And one imagines a portrait of Natalie Mosco aging in a prop cabinet somewhere.

The younger players hold their own. Jared Joseph and Linnaia McKenzie make indomitable vocal contributions. Joseph’s exaggerated soft-shoe to “Colored Spade” (with Leslie and Marshall) is a production highlight, thanks in part to his elastic hips and ironic jazz hands.

Familiar Rep players Shanna Jones and Emily Shackelford score points with comic facial expressions and crisp dance moves. Jones delivers a less saccharine performance of “Good Morning Starshine” than I thought possible, and Shackelford nails the brutally high descant on “Be-in.” Daniel Beeman is the consummate triple threat: affecting, limber and loud.

The production design is effective and deceptively simple. Sound designer Joanna Lynne Staub makes balancing a gaggle of Broadway-grade belters look easy. Grant Wilcoxen (lights) and Jeffrey Cady (projections) achieve rock-concert production values and spectacle during group numbers and cabaret intimacy during solos. Conductor Anthony T. Edwards leads a note-perfect band of pit musicians. And Jack Magaw’s industrial set combines slick modern design and throwback touches. (A totem-pole head is a smart nod to the original Broadway set.)

Hair was originally subtitled “The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical.” Rosen’s players have adopted that language, referring to one another as members of the same tribe. Storytelling becomes part of that bonding experience: Zenobia shares her experience auditioning for the show while the cast performs “Going Down.” Leslie delivers a restrained but keenly felt monologue about feeling disconnected from the era’s free spirits and free love but connected to young cast member Daniel Beeman.

Beeman and Leslie’s friendship is a testament to the collaborative environment that Rosen and his colleagues have achieved. You never sense a rift between the new and original casts, despite the decades dividing them. Still, the script leans heavily on the original cast for its substance, to the unfortunate exclusion of the stories of a few Kansas City players who could likely have contributed more than fresh dance legs.

But the rearview focus is understandable. This is a “retrospection,” after all. And the camaraderie among cast members is evident in each group number. Hair was, for better or worse, a product of its time. Hair: Retrospection is a product of its tribe, honoring the legacy of the musical’s performers with support from a new generation.