SOURCE: Kauffmann, Stanley. “Stanley Kauffmann on Films: Ex-Champions.” New Republic 180, no. 15 (14 April 1979): 40-1.

In the following excerpt, Kauffmann examines the change of public perceptions and attitudes between the original theatrical production of Hair and the release of Forman's film adaptation.

Hair (United Artists) is chockablock with imaginative lift and pyrotechnical dazzle, all of it apparently intended to forestall question. That question, of course, is: Is Hair dated? Well, most of the songs (most of which have been retained from the original score) are still engaging, and much of the filming is fine. But Hair, even with its now-blanched script, is about a subject, and 10 years have put that subject in a cooler light.

I saw the first production (1967) at the Public Theater in New York, and beyond this song or that performer, I remember feeling throughout the show that the whole high-ceilinged room was being charged with energy...