Commercial hippie shows near St. Mark’s Place felt pointless to scene insiders

Evidence

The same week, several blocks farther east on Lafayette Street, Joseph Papp inaugurated his new Public Theater (the old Astor Library saved from the wrecking ball some eighteen months earlier) with the so-called “tribal rock musical” Hair. While he approved of The Beard, Smith despised Hair. Presenting a hippie show around the corner from St. Mark’s Place seemed stupid and pointless (EVO agreed), although Smith decided he liked Hair when, now with nudity, it opened on Broadway six months later. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1100

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The move of Hair from a tribal spectacle at Papp’s theater to a nuded-up Broadway run six months later is the scene-becomes-market arc the reader’s framing is built on — the exact moment a subculture product crosses into the commercial market.