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Amily

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Jul 25, 2010, 11:00:06 PM7/25/10

Legacy

Hair was Broadway's first concept musical, a form that dominated the
musical theater of the seventies.[227] Hal Prince's forays into the
concept musical – Company, Follies and Pacific Overtures – refined the
genre, while Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line popularized it. Like
Hair, A Chorus Line was crafted during an extended experimental
workshop period at the Public Theatre.[227]

While the development of the concept musical was an unexpected
consequence of Hair's tenure on Broadway, the expected rock music
revolution on Broadway turned out to be less than complete.[227]
MacDermot followed Hair with three successive rock scores: Two
Gentlemen of Verona (1971); Dude (1972), a second collaboration with
Ragni; and Via Galactica (1972). While Two Gentlemen of Verona found
receptive audiences and a Tony for Best Musical, Dude failed after
just sixteen performances, and Via Galactica flopped after a month.
[228] According to Horn, these and other such "failures may have been
the result of producers simply relying on the label 'rock musical' to
attract audiences without regard to the quality of the material
presented."[228] Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) and Godspell (1971)
were two religiously-themed successes of the genre. Grease (1975)
reverted to the rock sounds of the Fifties, and black-themed musicals
like The Wiz (1975) were heavily influenced by gospel, R&B and soul
music. By the late 1970s, the genre had played itself out.[228]

Except for a few outposts of rock, like Dreamgirls (1981) and Little
Shop of Horrors (1982), audience tastes in the 1980s turned to
megamusicals with pop scores, like Les Misérables (1985) and The
Phantom of the Opera (1986).[229] Some later rock musicals, such as
Rent (1996) and Spring Awakening (2006), as well as jukebox musicals
featuring rock music, like We Will Rock You (2002) and Rock of Ages
(2009), have found success. But the rock musical did not quickly come
to dominate the musical theatre stage after Hair. Critic Clive Barnes
commented, "There really weren't any rock musicals. No major rock
musician ever did a rock score for Broadway.... You might think of the
musical Tommy, but it was never conceived as a Broadway show.... And
one can see why. There's so much more money in records and rock
concerts. I mean, why bother going through the pain of a musical which
may close in Philadelphia?"[228]

On the other hand, Hair had a profound effect not only on what was
acceptable on Broadway, but as part of the very social movements that
it celebrated. As Ellen Stewart, La MaMa's founder, noted:

Hair came with blue jeans, comfortable clothing, colors, beautiful
colors, sounds, movement.... And you can go to AT&T and see a
secretary today, and she's got on blue jeans.... You can go anywhere
you want, and what Hair did, it is still doing twenty years later....
A kind of emancipation, a spiritual emancipation that came from
[O'Horgan's] staging.... Hair until this date has influenced every
single thing that you see on Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway,
anywhere in the world, you will see elements of the experimental
techniques that Hair brought not just to Broadway, but to the entire
world.[230]
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