Beehive, the 60's Musical

Or: Hair

What is Beehive? Is it a Jukebox? An ode to female empowerment? Musical Cosplay? A really unorganized history lesson? In the name of exactness, I’d classify it as a review: a loosely knit collection of songs brought together to glorify and rekindle the love we had for them and show off the art and artists (particularly costume designer Esther Haberlen who runs the wildest and wittiest of the decade's decadence). There’s not really a story, the chronology is rapaciously eager, the characters of the six women come to sing for us only come in flashes, and the songs only tentatively rise from any kind of order. It’s a musical that works best with an audience, and there are more than a few in the audience willing to sing back up and dance in the aisles, but I think it would have held my attention better if it had belted it in a theater half the size, or, more pointedly, on a watermelon summer night and not a chilly autumn evening.

The cast, our guides and curators are all beautiful singers but run afoul of that particular ailment of beautiful singers in that when required to form an ensemble, they cannot sing as beautifully. Rather you here a half-dozen angels, keeping pace with each other and vying for the melody.

There’s Wanda (Adrianna Cleveland), who (she says) has gathered us all here tonight to relive the pleasure of putting “White Jubilee Paint on our Go-go Boots,” who possesses a singularly silken voice that swoops and spreads and gets right to the toes, river deep and mountain high, a vibrant thread in the ensemble of voices (favorites: “Then He Kissed Me”, ”Chain of Fools”). Laura (Shelby Griswold) of a remarkably powerful voice, rushing with never-flagging energy over our heads and doing a mean Janis-Joplin-Fast-Talk too boot (“I’ll never change him,” “Cry Baby). Gina (Camille Robinson), an even presence, lost in the loveliness of the music, but occasionally breaking out an dynamo energy (“Beehive Dance,” “Proud Mary”). Alison (Annalise Griswold, no relation?) full of fun and spunk, delighted to be here and determined to delight us too (with the chrome-y gonna-kill-ya joy of “My Boyfriends Back” and the throbbing ferocity of “Somebody to Love”). Jasmin (Christina Perrault), has, to my ear at least, the most captivating voice, straight out of the bell-toned and crystal-clear qualities that make the ladies of mid-century music so desirable, with a marvelous touch of mischief in her style (“Academy Award,” “Sweet Talkin’ Guy”). And Pattie (Hannah-Jo Weisberg) high and tart, daring for both the vibrant belt and the intimate murmur, and, to me, the most fun to watch (“Be My Baby,” “You Make Me Feel (like a Natural Woman)”).

Beehive may be a trifle but it is not trifling. There are times, particularly once the petticoats come down, that these six women of song soften and blend into something truly catching, such as the somber “Abraham, Martin, and John.” And while the glimpses of their lives (boyfriends dead in Vietnam, DIY miniskirts, Woodstock) feel nabbed rather than lived the passion of the songs (and the idolization of the women who sang them) are sung with passion. I fell under A. Griswold’s warm but steely presence as she rooted herself and spread to the tips of the graceful notes of “Son of a Preacher Man,” and whooped along with the sheer Tina Turneryness of Robinson’s “Proud Mary.” And by the time we hit the simple but elegant chorus of “Make Your Own Kind of Music” even those of us freezing on the hillside could partake in our own piece of the glow.