The New York Daily News, April 30, 1968

 

New York Daily Column

 

WINCHELL PREVIEWS "HAIR"

 

By Walter Winchell

 

This veteran of the Broadway scene since 1920 has seen almost everything on and off a stage, but he has never witnessed anything like "Hair" which came to the Biltmore asylum last night.

 

It is the most exciting entertainment in town.

 

Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, LeRoi Jones and other masters of four-letter-word literature are made to appear old-hat, dated and obsolete by the graffiti in "Hair."  It may force the above-named greats out of show business.

 

It is authentic Hippieville with a large cast of young people, many of whom are talented, attractive and naked.

 

The score has twenty rock-tunes that delighted the preview audience from the moment the curtain did not go up until the final curtain did not drop.

 

The show has no curtain on part of it. 

 

Nor on any part of several Adam & Eves in the finale of Act I.

 

Mae West, author, director, producer and star of "Sex" (decades ago) was paddy-wagoned to the 16th Precinct for being so "sinful" in that flop.

 

But, as a line in a "Hair" song goes, "This is 1968 not 1948!"

 

"Hair," besides being completely mad and orgiastic, is sacrilegious and rude to American Institutions, including Margaret Mead.

 

The producer and authors, however, offer the insulted some balm - when a character (representing yesterday's generation) tells the hippies: "Kids, do whatever you want to do...just as long as you don't hurt anyone."

 

This astonishing production gave every indication of being a smash hit.