The producers of the Public Theater’s loving revival of Hair in Central Park have put aside the reality that most of us recall not the original (and far less linear) 1968 Broadway production, but instead the lean, fun 1979 Milos Forman film adaptation. I left the Delacorte Theater last Saturday night with renewed respect for the Czech movie director who took the Broadway version and re-fashioned it into a tight, endearing movie musical, mostly by cutting songs that stretched out the simple story into an epic rock-opera of emotional uplift.  But by the end of a long night at the Delacorte–one that included actors roaming the aisles for loose change, waving their hair in people’s faces and, at the end, inviting the audience onstage to boogie–I had given in, like everyone else, to the intoxicating power of a natural high. 

There’s really not much point denying the power of the dozen or so songs that make Hair a classic: this production offers near-perfect renditions of “Aquarius,” “Let The Sun Shine In,” “Where Do I Go?” and “Hair” –along with one song wrongly cut from the movie, the spectacular and haunting “Frank Mills.” It’s fun to watch well-trained actors bring to life lyrics imbedded in your brain, and hear melodies that soar; it’s a musical score as good as any ever performed on a Broadway stage, with endlessly brilliant, hilarious lyrics. And the cast assembled to stage for this production has the looks and talent to keep even the most hardened cynic mesmerized. The first act takes off so fast, and forges such a strong emotional connection with an audience who has long ago memorized the melodies, that it’s nearly impossible to let go of its pull.

And yet, to my surprise, boredom sets in quickly after intermission, when an epic hallucination sequence–wisely trimmed in the movie–strings together several songs that stop the show’s heart-stopping pleasures dead in its tracks. It’s no creative crisis–this production will move to Broadway and collect tons of awards, have no doubt–but would it have hurt the cause to cut judiciously from a show with more than two dozen songs and multiple reprises? With so many back-to-back pleasures in Hair, it seemed indulgent to restore every melody removed by Forman in his equally moving interpretation. 

This is a minor quibble with Hair, a long-overdue and mostly-inspired answer to the prayers of those who stand for hours every summer in the hopes of a wonderful bargain in a spectacular setting–and frequently end up disappointed. I loved the performance of Jonathan Groff as Claude Hooper Bukowski; even though I preferred the character’s hick-to-hippie transformation added to Hair by the movie’s screenwriter, Michael Weller, Groff managed to make sense of the original, muddled conception of Claude as a hippie to begin with.  

The point of a nostalgia trip like this is to restore sensations lost or forgotten over time, and even this flawed production succeeds on that level, especially if you’re the type to enjoy making googly eyes with actors when they come visit you at your seat. I’m not, but this show succeeds at making a human connection in other ways, most of them musical. And the epic, thrilling rendition of “Let The Sun Shine In” at the curtain call gives the audience time to revel privately in whatever pleasures they associate with those bygone days–and to enjoy the chance to sing along with the gifted, gorgeous cast under the spell of an August moon. It’s enough to justify the indulgence of brilliant artists who should have known better than to reject some shrewd, delicate editing of their timeless masterpiece.
 



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Radar's next issue features a story by Jessica Pilot that looks into the girls that hang out at the Beatrice Inn and get paid to fuck guys who shouldn't have any problem getting girls anyway. But hey, it's easier (and cheaper) to pay a girl to have sex with you than have to date her. These privileged ladies, including Heather who has a job in fashoin media, are so post-feminist that they studied women's studies and decided to "freelance" in the sex trade instead of pursue loftier pursuits.

"Heather's other partner, a blonde with freckled ivory skin with whom she had some common friends, works under the name Kelly. After graduating from an Ivy League college in 2006, Kelly says she was thinking about going to grad school to become an English professor. She's decided to put that aspiration on hold, though, while she rakes in the equivalent of an investment banker's salary selling sex."

Read more about the hipster hookers here.


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For the past four years, buxom beauty GiGi La Femme has been stripping, teasing, and making waves in the burlesque scene.  Now, she welcomes the beginning of spring at her popular monthly performance Revealed, featuring Peekaboo Pionte, Harvest Moon, Amber Ray, and more, Wednesday, April 15.  Before she takes it all off, GiGi shared a little about what she feels about the show, her burlesque performers, and what she likes to do when not hanging out in her new apartment or professionally taking her clothes off.

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At this moment, 30 Rock-star and SNL alum Tina Fey is speaking at the Fieldston School’s graduation ceremonies. Fieldston, one of the city’s private, prestigious “Hill” high schools, counts a diverse menagerie of movers and shakers among its former students: everyone from the late photographer Diane Arbus, to the father of the atom bomb Robert Oppenheimer, to Sean Ono Lennon, the son of John and Yoko, has walked the campus’ grounds at some point or another.

How did Fieldston manage to snag the movie star for the high school commencement assignment? No one’s saying, but it seems worth noting that Upper West Side Fey’s daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond, turns 3 in September, putting her theoretically in line for a spot at one of New York’s prestigious private schools. Fieldston, perhaps?



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Gay men have begun speaking out concerning false arrests at video stores since undercover cops have been arresting them for prostitution. DA Robert Morgenthau says most of the cases against the men will probably be thrown out. But where is the public outcry? Leave it to the porn kings to take the idea and turn it on his head. Michael Lucas Entertainment has released a film titled Entrapment. And the guy behind the "script," Mr. Pam speaks to Charlie Vasquez about where he got his inspiration:

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Miss California U.S.A., Carrie Prejean, the runner-up for Miss U.S.A., is making headlines again. Fresh off a heated dispute with Perez Hilton about gay marriage, there are new reports of nude and semi-nude pictures of Ms. Prejean. Yes, these pictures of Prejean sans-jeans (she's wearing underwear and turned away from the camera) break the Miss U.S.A. pageant rules (not the Miss America pageant rules, so don't get them confused).

Thedirty.com, which is currently not loading because of overwhelming traffic, is promising to roll out more pictures. The Miss California U.S.A. runner-up, Miss Malibu, the woman one heartbeat away from Miss California U.S.A., said she is willing and able to step into the role. 

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Mother Nature is such a tease. Just as we begin to relax our winter weariness, languishing in her gift of bizarre 60+ degree March weather, she flips us upside down, slaps our ass and makes us cry—as if we were new born babes and she a zealous doctor. Tomorrow, expect temperatures to be back in the 30s with some snow mixed in—three to six inches accumulation is expected. So get out there and enjoy this humid, sticky weather while you can.

Photo courtesy of Manamanah on Flickr


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Enough to make me give up cupcakes and possibly anything with dairy in it forever, Vice Magazine released a story about the higher nutritional value of breast milk.

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The Lonely Island, aka Avika Schaffer, Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone, "released" their first video/single last night on Saturday Night Live, "Jizz in My Pants." The song/video (it's difficult to separate the two since the track would suffer without the visuals) is a send up of faggy Euro-pop and is just the latest in the trio's creations that have parodied the hackneyed and cheesy music of the past and (rarely) present—while also wallowing in prurient, adolescent pranks that still manages to pass for clever humor (wasn't irony supposed to be dead?). While this one doesn't have the star power of a Justin Timberlake cameo (although on occassion the sunglasses on Schaffer, along with his greasy mop of hair, did have me mistake him for a less-chiseled Timberlake), it does have a catchy chorus and infectious silliness.

Yes, it's funny. I'm not so cynical that I didn't enjoy the first few minutes of it. But, as with "Lazy Sunday" and "Dick in a Box," I wondered why I felt like this parody felt so familiar and didn't quite satisfy beyond a few chuckles. Then it hit me: Weird Al Yankovic did it already—and better.

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The artist whom people best know for his melting clocks, baguette-crowned bicyclists and crawling ants, not only painted and drew, but also had an avid interest in film. This Sunday, the Museum of Modern Art will open the exhibit Dalí: Painting and Film, the first retrospective of Salvador Dalí’s work in-house since 1941.  Focusing on his films, the show has six galleries dedicated to single projects and important time periods in Dalí’s film career.

The exhibit aptly displays a side of Dalí that is less talked about, and it does it well.  The rooms of the exhibit are easy to navigate and the rich content sticks with the theme while enhancing the films.  As an avid Dalí fan, I have been to dozens of museums and shows highlighting his career, and it was nice to go to a show that I felt I hadn’t been to before.

Arranged in chronological order, the exhibit starts with the 1929 film, Un Chien Andalou. This film, on which Dalí collaborated with Luis Buñuel, was meant to induce the feeling of dreaming, or more, “nightmaring.” It not only shows unsavory images like a decaying donkey and piles of ants, but also has the cult-classic scene of an eyeball being sliced by a razor blade.

Paired with this film is the painting, “Apparatus and Hand” (1927), which has images from the film but centers on a large figure made of geometric shapes propped up by sticks.  Protruding from the top of the figure is a cartoonish red hand laced with green veins.  To the side, a donkey and the torso of a woman engage the center object with phantom limbs reaching out.

The next room showed the second film by Dalí and Buñuel, L'Âge d'Or.  On display were letters between the two men about what the film should contain as well as Dalí’s sketches.  The characters in the film are like Dalí’s paintings, from afar they appeared attractive but the closer you get, the more it becomes clear they aren’t.  This can also be seen in “La Main (Les Remords de Conscience),” Dalí’s 1930 painting of a giant gray hand on a cobalt blue background.  Pretty from a distance, but as you near the picture you see the hand is made of smoke and the man attached to the hand sits in a pile of feces while his eyes drip blood.

Aside from films by Dalí, the show highlights works that stimulated him.  One of Dalí’s greatest inspirations came from the Marx Brothers, whose 1930 film, Animal Crackers, he evaluated in a 1932 essay called, “A Short Critical History of Cinema.”  Dalí especially was drawn to Harpo Marx whom he felt embodied the spirit of madness.  He liked him so much that he sent him a special harp stringed with barbed wire for Christmas in 1936.  Harpo responded by sending him pictures of his bandaged fingers playing the harp—these pictures, along with letters from their collaboration are on display.  Despite all the work Dalí did with the Marx Brothers, the film never reached production.

The show also has films Dalí worked on, like Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 Spellbound where he did the “Dream Sequence,” which features large eyeballs in various states of staring.  Showing a clip from the movie, this part of the exhibition also has one of the actual painted backdrops and some set designs.  One in particular, “The Lost Ballroom Scene,” was as beautiful as it was eerie with ghost couples dancing around a piano that looked like it was morphing into a lion that soon would be ready to eat, or maybe it had, and those where the devoured souls.  Seeing this image made me yearn to witness Dalí’s vision live, which unfortunately was never made.

The best, and most suprising part of the exhibit turned out to be Dalí’s 1946 collaboration with Disney and animator John Hench, in Destino. The fluid momentum of this six-minute film proved that Dalí’s visions work well animated. Based on his images and set to Armando Domínguez’s ballad “Destino,” the short moves beautifully as a woman, who looks like a character from Aeon Flux, dances around Dalíesqe creatures.  Though Dalí basically designed the scenes, the only animation he actually did can be seen near the end when two human-headed tortoises meet. 

Aside from the films shown in the exhibit, MoMA will also screen six films about Dalí in their movie theaters. One of the films, "The Death of Salvador Dalí,” features Dita Von Tesse as Gala and an exaggerated Dalí expressing, “Dalí is only happy in the sun and covered with flies!”  He says this on a visit to Sigmund Freud who then puts Dalí through a regiment of tests.  All the while people continually try and kill Dalí as he insists to Freud that it’s all part of a dream sequence.  The whole thing loops around so that by the end of the short, you are back at the beginning not sure what really just happened.

By the last gallery, you feel that you may have just been in a bizarre dream for the last few hours, but you come out knowing the end is the end.



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