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The Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1968

 

STARS TURN OUT AT

OPENING OF "HAIR"      Photo of Richard Chamberlain

 

"Hair" should be called "Heat."  At least judging by opening night.  L.A.'s new Aquarius Theater, which houses the Butler-Kragen-Smothers-Fritz presentation of the Broadway love-rock musical was steaming hot - so hot that many in the audience found it uncomfortable to applaud.  I was among them.

 

We applauded anyway, but somebody had better tell Tommy Smothers to turn on the air conditioning.  And to start on time.  The audience, arriving for a 7:30 curtain, had to wait over an hour for the first marvelous, hip-squalid signs of life.

 

Apart from the heat and the halt, "Hair" proved as delightful as a draught of Mouton Rothschild on a very cold night.  It travels better, in fact, and ages as well.  It has been slightly updated.  One of the posters in the energetic musical protest march, newly lettered, reads, "Nixon is Rosemary's Baby."

 

The cast, happily, hippily headed by writers Gerome Ragni and James Rado, makes this still the best of the rock musicals by far so far.  The score, by Galt Mac Dermot, doesn't detract one whit from the controversial dialog and doings.  (I suppose Tommy Smothers may have left off the air conditioning in order to keep those naked men and women - there were a dozen of them - warm.)

 

As for the audience, it was hard to decide which was the most interesting couple.  Richard Chamberlain came with George Le Maire, and Irwin Allen trailed down the aisle just a giant step behind Groucho Marx.  It was that kind of night.  George Furth was with Bobo Lewis, Barbara Parkins with John Phillip Law, Robert Vaughn and Lee Marvin were by themselves, as was Hugh O'Brian, all wrapped up in a blue velvet high-collared quasi-Edwardian jacket - even though Hugh came with a date.

 

Half of Laugh-In was there - Jude Carne, Jo Ann Worley, Dick Martin, the George Schlatters, Ed Friendlys - and both of the Smothers, Tom and Dick.  CBS was there: it probably had to be, or the Smothers wouldn't go on on Sunday night.  Handsome group president John (oh-is-he-handsome) Schneider came with West Coast chief Perry Lafferty and his wife Fran.  Sonja Henie came late, attracting attention, as always, this time with a powder blue mink jacket dyed to match her blue beaded dress.

 

It was wild, with a party afterwards in a tent on Sunset Blvd.  Everyone was there, even Liberace.  I kept wondering how Liberace liked the show.