Watching the current "tribe" of the Tony Award-winning revival of
Hair, now at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theatre -- the fourth group of actors I've seen since the show's first Central Park concert staging in 2007 -- only makes me admire director Diane Paulus' handling of the landmark 1967 work even more. Although some of the key players of this extremely energetic troupe don't quite deliver the necessary emotional goods, the show not only retains its political and social relevance, but remains an ultimately heartbreaking yet joyful piece of theater.

True, Paulus has been blessed with one of the theater's greatest scores, by Galt McDermot, Gerome Ragni, and James Rado, and it still sounds a[...]

There's little question that the quintessential "make love not war" musical Hair, now at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theatre, can come off as little more than a faded period piece four decades after it rocked the theater world. But in the remarkably sure hands of director Diane Paulus and a committed cast of young Broadway talent, the landmark 1967 work not only retains its political and social relevance, but remains a remarkably joyous and occasionally heartbreaking piece of theater. The result is the year's best Broadway musical revival.

True, audience members who saw Paulus' previous staging of the work in Central Park -- in both 2007 and 2008 -- may not be fully satisfied by the change to[...]