Episode 1: HAIR, Germany

Sometimes it’s hard to let the sun shine in

What began as a 3-month visit with my friends in the La MaMa tour turned into two years.  Originally, I’d hit Amsterdam, Spoletto, Yugoslavia (still featuring Tito), Capri then back to Amsterdam.  After that three months I would go home.

It didn’t end up that way. My first stop after landing in Brussels was Amsterdam to look for some friends traveling from Morocco. This first night I headed to the Olympic Stadium to see Hair. Every production I saw on this trip was done like the production in New York. Same everything with a lot of the text in the language of the host country ( i.e. Dutch in Holland, Spanish in Spain) so I had to guess what they were saying—I knew the text I figured it out. When my friends didn’t show I decided to head to Austria. I guess, I knew nothing about the geography of Western Europe. What I figured would only be a few hours was like 1,000 hours and I was totally wrung out when I got off the train at Wein Central Station.

I had a letter of introduction from Bertrand Castelli, one of the shows’ European producers, to give the casting person in Vienna but I had to find her first. Hair posters were everywhere, but not at the train station and not on this very dressed-up shopping street outside the station where people were very cold and mean to me and couldn’t/wouldn’t help. I thought they were all just faking the “no English” line I kept hearing. Finally I see this great big man with frizzy hair dressed in black from head to toe. I stopped him to ask if he spoke English and where was Hair playing. He says he will be going near the theater and would drop me off. After a short drive, I was let out at this big sports complex and told to go through the restaurant to the patio—I did so and there they were.

I got a great greeting and introduced myself to them as I see the man in black enter the patio laughing at his joke. This was Peter Kern who would play a big part in my Hair experience when I did join-up later on. I guess I’d asked the right guy for directions. I found out the casting woman, Gina Harding, was in Morocco so I decided to just go on to Italy, join my friends and see what was happening there. I did see the Vienna company do three shows with Miss Donna Gaines (Summers) just tearing it up.

Donna Summers sings ‘White Boys’ in German.

The whole company was invited to a concert in a fantasy-like Viennese ballroom with crystals and tapestries and oil paintings and parquetry and marquetry and all these crazy Hippies all tripped-out on acid and Rock and Roll music. I was with Barbara Johnson and Celeste Pena from the show—in Brooklyn and the Bronx, respectively. It was like an opulent dream. I had nothing in life to compare this to. Three days later back on the train to join La MaMa in Italy.

I got to Spoletto for the closing night of Arden of Faversham. It was in a venue called the Chapel, which had been completely covered over with black contact paper even the windows. I was lucky enough to see the Danse Theatre of Holland and attend a way-gay party at Gian Carlo Menotti’s regal villa up on a hill.

Next was  a month with no bookings and I took off with some of the group and saw Pompei and Capri and got back in time to return to Capri and our next booking. The Hotel Quisana was famous as the place  where Oscar Wilde hung out  when he was fresh from prison.  Diners left in disgust, all swearing oaths to not eat in the same room as this pervert. That being the big event other than company-wide diarrhea.

We finished there and left for the Bietef Festival in Yugoslavia. We were treated like royalty and were the big special show at the festival. Hair was playing in repertory at our theater and I asked and got to meet some of the cast. Through an interpreter we talked all afternoon and I learned how much of the play and music were forbidden. The non political/non threatening songs were left in like “Starshine” and “Aquarius” and a few more. Mostly they said they just danced around and tried to imagine what American hippies were like, with all out jeans and freedom. They were very unhappy people unable to be what they wanted to be.

I had received a telegram in Amsterdam from Fred Rhineglass saying to call him and join him in the little industrial town of Duisberg, Germany. One of the English girls in the cast said it was a lot like Liverpool. . . all bleak and cold. The show was in a brand new “arts complex” which included a bowling alley and a cinema that was showing Tora! Tora! Tora!—that didn’t go over well; we protested long and loud. I arrived near show time and get to meet everyone with lots of hugs and cheers and was told I could go into the house and watch. I took off my shoes and went on stage instead. I’d never been on a stage doing Hair but the cast got me through Aquarius circle and the first verse which Rosmarie—not Rose Mary—sang in French to welcome me into the show then just as the 2nd verse began she handed me the mic and I sang the verse in English. What a night. I had waited what seemed like years to be doing this and was loving it like I knew I would.

After the show that night some of the cast took us back to their hotel and checked us in and I started to get to know their names. Peter and Kerry from Amsterdam played our Wolf and Dione. One standing on top of the other they were barely 5 ft tall. We all went to my room Rosemarie und Gherhardt und Fryia und Tayia und Mayia und other names I couldn’t understand or say. We had many a giant hash joint when we hear the owner screaming about something on fire. Lo and behold Peter had let the heat coil boil the water away and now the plastic tea-pot was smoking and all melty. Many joints and hours later I began to see what being on the road with Hair would be like. Nothing to do all day but sleep late and get ready for different events. Ready to do the shopping, ready to cook dinner, do my nails, Henna my hair and ready to get ready to get to the theater. So getting ready usually meant a bath and whatever beauty regimen you wanted to follow that day. A LOT of time devoted to beauty and hair-care products, 19 or 20 hours every day then the show. Nowhere to go except the only restaurant open past midnight two towns away. All the cab drivers knew us and were usually waiting for us after the show.

One night we come out and there’s a fleet of Mercedes taxis waiting to take us to Essen. Essen? 50 miles away and have you ever driven on the Autobahn? No lights, lots and lots of fog and I can’t figure if the speedometer means 120 mph or kph but I’m alone with my driver and he doesn’t notice me frantically begging him to slow down. I didn’t know how to ask for French Fries let alone stop the car. That we got there in one piece was a great relief.

We had been brought to a party for the opening of a new travel agency in Essen. The owners had asked us there for color and trendy freak appeal. Our hosts were all in their mid 20’s rich multi-lingual friends for years and high on how fabulous they thought they were. This night I had gone on as the Pill Lady and was very proud of having spoken my lines in German after many a failed attempt. One of them came up to me to say how charming she found us Americans and how funny we were at mispronouncing the lines. They thought we were hilarious.

I was being taught several lines and characters I’d be doing when Peter Kern (the jokester in black) left the show in a month or two. The first one we tried was the Pill Lady. Peter would take me up to the rehearsal rooms in back of the theater and we’d work. Peter would say the line in German then I’d try to say it back to him in German, then he’d pull out his pipe and we’d get stoned. Needless to say, it took me forever to learn the lines. The rehearsal room was next to the room where the band lived, which was a sad little room: toilet in the lobby, a hot-plate, no heat, and no tv. I got to know the band early on, they had asked me to sing “The Letter” for our curtain call instead of dancing to more of “Let the Sunshine In” etc.

I found out our producer Werner Schmidt, the man who would bring Uri Geller to the world and had held back every cent he could from each paycheck, hadn’t paid the band for the longest time. These guys were playing their hearts out every night and could barely afford tea.  After 3 months here we packed up to hit Hamburg. Opening night the cast got together and agreed to pull a strike at intermission if the band weren’t paid. Opening night a huge full house and the bookkeeper, one Frau Burri, frantically trying to reach Herr Schmidt to help, he would go on to serve time for not paying his taxes. They held the curtain as I explained what we expected from him and Frau Burri came across with what they were owed. She tried but couldn’t hit me with the stapler she threw at me or the phone book either.