A&E: On the road: Broadway’s latest-WEB ONLY

Have some theater time on an upcoming business trip to New York? Here are three shows from the current season Broadway season.

“Hair,” the self-proclaimed “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical,” is back on Broadway some 40 years after its take-theater-by-storm original production.

And I’m very pleased to report that the musical groundbreaker’s latest incarnation isn’t a plotless nostalgia piece for aging hippies (which it could have been). Nor is it an over-romanticized vision of a complex, turbulent period (which it also could have been). Instead, it’s a hugely satisfying piece of theater. The terrific score (including hits “Aquarius” and “Let the Sun Shine”) is intact, but time-and the talented production team-have rendered it more powerful with an added layer of truly moving melancholy. When the tribe demands “Peace now/Freedom now,” their optimism, anger, disappointment, confusion and sadness are palpable.

Clear characterizations help make this “Hair” a flesh-and-blood piece as much about people as it is about ideas. In the leads, Gavin Creel gives emotional depth to the conflicted Claude and is in wonderful voice throughout. Will Swenson finds both the little boy and the selfish demon in leader Berger-although he looks more like the scary/cool teacher than the high-school-age dropout he’s written to be.

But it’s the work of the supporting cast that, for me, resonates the deepest. Caissie Levy’s Sheila, the second-semester NYU protestor, may be the smartest character on stage, but that also means she knows when the country-and her friends-let her down. Megan Lawrence (seen in Indy in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra concert version of “Guys and Dolls” that I’m going to keep on referencing in this column because it was that good) is spot-on, both in adult roles and as a member of the tribe.

Andrew Kober makes the Margaret Mead drag sequence as funny as I think it could possibly be. And Allison Case as Crissy not only nails the whispy classic song “Frank Mills,” but also beautifully captures a character who takes empathy to a deep, physical level, heartbreakingly pained by the pain others experience and taking huge pleasure in watching others be happy. It’s a remarkable performance in what could have been a throwaway part, and it’s the key to why this production works so well.

“Reasons to be Pretty,” the latest play from Neil LaBute, is also about human weakness. In the comedy/drama, word gets back to a warehouse worker’s girlfriend that he described her face as “regular.”

At first, such a slight doesn’t seem to warrant the blistering verbal return fire from her that it generates. But as we get deeper into the lives of the play’s four characters, their fragility-their dependence on their self-image to keep them going through likely dead-end lives-makes her reaction seem almost understandable.

I was concerned that “Reasons to be Pretty” would be just a variation of LaBute’s “Fat Pig” (which played the Phoenix Theatre here two seasons ago) substituting looks for weight. But the former Fort Wayner, making his Broadway writing debut, seems to be evolving past the controversial topic + bad behavior + final twist = play formula. Here, he wisely allows his characters to stray from the provocative plot device while never losing focus. And there’s no doubt that this time he cares about his characters as human beings.

The result, while perhaps less conversation-provoking than other LaBute work, certainly feels more mature. And the smart production and the quartet of actors (Marin Ireland, Steven Pasquale, Piper Perabo, and the outstanding Thomas Sadoski) provide even more reasons to see it.

“9 to 5: The Musical” is exactly the musical anyone should expect to see if he or she purchases a ticket to “9 to 5: The Musical.”

I don’t mean to sound glib. There’s something to be said-a lot to be said-for meeting audience expectations.

The musical, like a significant number of Broadway musicals these days, is based on a movie-in this case, the inexplicable 1979 hit of the same name. Strident and unfunny, that film had as its ace in the hole: the charming, disarming Dolly Parton, on screen for the first time and penning the title song.

For the stage version, the country queen gets to write the entire perfectly passable score. She doesn’t appear in the (ample) flesh, but actress Megan Hilty does a fine job in her role. Allison Janney, late of TV’s “The West Wing,” anchors the show in the Lily Tomlin part, giving it a softer spin. Clearly not a singer or dancer, she gets by just fine in the grand Broadway tradition of such actresses as Katharine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall doing musical turns. Rounding out the trio is Stephanie J. Block, who’s got the best voice but is saddled with the least interesting character (the Jane Fonda part).

If, like me, you aren’t a fan of the film, then you are likely to cringe all over again at the hog-tying fantasy sequences, the obvious one-liners, et al. While the set itself is an impressive variation on “How to Succeed in Business,” the addition of distracting rear-of-the-stage projections not only annoyed, but robbed the show of some of its period fun.

For information on these and other New York shows, visit www.playbill.com.

This column appears weekly. Send information on upcoming events to lharry@IBJ.com. Visit IBJ.com/arts for additional reviews, previews and arts discussion.