From HAIR to RENT: Is Musical Theater ever new?

“There is nothing new in art except talent.” Chekhov


I saw Hair this weekend, and have been thinking of this quote ever since. (Full disclosure, I had to look up who originally said it. I am not up on my Chekhov, I just remembered liking the quote). This was my first time seeing Hair, and the cast was fantastic, and full of energy and life. I only knew a few of the songs going in, which is odd for me, as I usually try to familiarize myself with the music before I go see a show. The sets were minimal, the band on stage is becoming a trend in shows (Spring Awakening, Next to Normal and Sweeney Todd are all doing that right now, and I have seen those in the past year) and the music still felt relevant some 30 years later. All in all very enjoyable. 


So, why Chekhov? Because I think he was wrong. Far be it from me to argue with a lauded dead Russian, but I think there are new things to be had in art in general and theater especially. Watching Hair on Saturday, I kept wondering how people felt when they saw this show in the original run. In the early 1960's, Fiddler on the Roof, Hello Dolly and The Sound of Music all won Tony's for Best Musical. Big, traditional musicals all. And then came Hair. With sex and drugs and electric guitars and leaving the stage to mingle with the audience. It must have been shocking and confusing and awe inspiring and moving to see. It must have felt like I felt watching Rent for the first time. 


I saw Rent in June 1997, when I was 19 and loved all things musical theater. I grew up with Les Miz and My Fair Lady, and had just done Into the Woods in college. My knowledge was limited to shows I had seen with my high school, or had been made into movies, but I loved them and sought out new shows as often as I could. I came across the soundtrack to Rent through a friend, and knew immediately that this was something new and different. I knew I liked the edgy lyrics because there was still enough "broadway" in there to keep me happy. My friends and I debated if Angel was a girl or a boy, and questioned what Stoli was. We were 19. And then we saw Rent for ourselves. We had gone to NYC to see The Lion King (great show, tickets were a gift because no college kid could afford the $120 ticket price) and stayed to see the late performance of Rent. We already had tickets for later in the summer, but somehow we could not wait. We HAD to see it that day.

Rent was shocking and awe inspiring and moving, and I cried several times. It was seeing my generation up on stage, with the most talented people I had ever seen pouring their hearts and souls and anger into the lyrics. It was early enough in the run that we saw most of the original cast, which looking back is amazing to me, but at the time I didn't know Taye Diggs from Adam Pascal. I didn't know this show would go on to be on the cover of Time, or even that Jonathon Larson has recently passed away, devastating the cast. I just knew that for two and a half hours, I was transfixed, and I felt like I was seeing something new.


I wasn't of course. If not for Hair, Rent probably would not exist. And if not for Rent, Spring Awakening probably would not exist either. And so it goes. Maybe Chekhov was right, and everything is just a new spin on something else.  But Hair lost the Best Musical Tony award to patriotic, traditional 1776, and Rent won both the Tony and the Pulitzer Prize. So maybe as we as a culture grow, we are learning better to accept things that are new to us, even if others before us have seen it all before.