Ask Maxwell Simon what the best part of performing in Hair is and he doesn’t talk about the music, the energy, or the standing ovations. He talks about watching the audience.
“Seeing how people in the audience are affected — this show means so much to so many people, and seeing them laughing, singing along and crying is such a rewarding experience,” Simon told The AJN.
It’s that kind of show.
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical has been doing that to audiences since it debuted off-Broadway in 1967.
It tells the story of a tribe of politically active, long-haired hippies of the Age of Aquarius, living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement, and it broke new ground by defining the rock musical genre, using a racially integrated cast and inviting the audience onstage for a “Be-In” finale.
“This show has so much humour and so much heart and I really hope people feel and appreciate both of those things.”
A Broadway run of 1750 performances was followed by a London production that ran for 1997, and a 2009 Broadway revival won the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Musical.
Simon plays Berger, the extrovert to Claude’s pensive romantic. It’s a character he describes as “a psychedelic teddy bear” who exists to keep the good times going. It suits him, he admits freely.
“I am a very playful, silly person who loves people, and that is a very large part of who Berger is.”
The Sydney season is a remount of a Melbourne production from last year, with the same director, Glenn Elston, and much of the same cast. Simon was glad to come back. He’d learned a lot from his castmates the first time round and wanted more of it.
“There are some really talented and smart actors in this show, and I was absolutely thrilled to get to work with them again and continue to learn from them all,” he said.
His connection to Hair goes deeper than the current run.
His father introduced him to the soundtrack when he was young. In his final year of high school, the school musical was Hair. The show has threaded through his life in a way that made saying yes to this production an easy call.
The acting bug itself arrived even earlier. A self-described middle child, Simon appeared in a children’s television series called Worst Best Friends and never looked back. After graduating university he was cast in Assassins at The Hayes Theatre, then straight into the Australian tour of American Idiot. On holiday between the two, filling out a customs card, he wrote “actor” under occupation.
“I truly felt like I had become who I had always wanted to be when I was a kid,” he recalled.
He’s candid about how the years since have actually gone.
A career in musical theatre, he says, is defined less by momentum than by gaps, uncertainty and the persistent question of what comes next. He has threatened to quit “many, many times”, always, he adds, with no intention of actually doing it.
“It is an incredibly unstable lifestyle working in theatre and there have been many highs and many lows. It’s only now looking back, having been in this industry for 10 years, that I see my career. And that is very satisfying.”
What keeps him in it is something harder to name. It’s what happens on stage when a performance stops being predictable. No two shows are ever alike, he says, because the actors in them aren’t.
“When you’re performing you really have to meet yourself and others where you are and go from there. You can’t control a show, you can only play with it. You never know what’s gonna happen on stage, and that is so exciting.”
He hopes Sydney audiences leave with both sides of what Hair offers. The laughs and the gut-punch. The show has been delivering both for nearly 60 years.
“This show has so much humour and so much heart and I really hope people feel and appreciate both of those things.”
Hair is currently showing at Theatre Royal, Sydney
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