The Tribe in Hair (All photos credit Michal Daniel)

It’s a good thing tickets for the revival of Hair currently playing at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in Manhattan are free and can only be obtained the day of the performance. Otherwise, the show would have sold out the day it opened and then been scalped at five times the ticket price. In fact, demand has been so great the run was extended two weeks and some people have gone back two, three, or even six times to see it again.

Why such enthusiasm? Even after 40 years, Hair is still incredibly edgy and outrageous, the songs holding up because they rock and the musical sound isn’t dated. Then there is the bisexual male relationship at the heart of Hair which still resonates today.

At the center of Hair’s pansexual Hippie "tribe" exists a three-way love triangle between Berger (Will Swenson), the sexy and charismatic ringleader, Sheila (Caryn Lyn-Manuel), the strong anti-war activist with a soft heart, and Claude (Jonathan Groff), the sensitive young man torn between his parents’ demands to follow his father’s footsteps into the military and his desire to remain close to Berger and Sheila.

One of the tribe explains the situation:

“Sheila is hung up on Berger, I’m hung up on Claude, Claude is hung up on a cross over Sheila AND Berger and Berger is hung up everywhere … And furthermore, Woof is hung up on Berger.”

Will Swenson, Jonathan Groff in Hair

However, it soon becomes clear that the musical’s central love story is the one between Claude and Berger, mirroring the real-life relationship between the show’s co-creators James Rado and Gerome Ragni.

At the time they were writing the book and lyrics for Hair, Ragni and Rado were living together in a small Hoboken one-bedroom flat as collaborators and partners in all ways. Although they didn’t originally write the roles of Berger and Claude for themselves, they wound up playing opposite each other on stage for over a year, acting out aspects of their relationship every night.

Even though Hair was written back in the mid-sixties, the bisexual aspects of the characters are refreshingly presented without any coming out angst. Berger, Sheila and Claude are happily involved in a loving three-way relationship and the problems they face are not about whether it’s “OK” for three people of any gender to be together.

The triad form the leadership core of the Hippie tribe which also demonstrates a nonchalant pansexuality. The sensual pairings of the tribe in different musical numbers shift like a kaleidoscope to include boy-girl, girl-girl, as well as boy-boy. At one point there is a humorous six body pileup with Berger on top of Sheila on the bottom, Claude on top of Berger’s backside, then Woof, Hud and Dionne pile on to the backside ”train.”