If you haven’t heard that resounding song from “Hair” in 1967, you can hear it now and participate in a remarkable 50th anniversary revival of the play at Hofstra University.
During the final days of this year’s election and our Trump season of discontent, it is worth considering whether there are connections that we should make between youth protests half a decade ago and what is happening now.
You can make your own judgments by seeing the play at Hofstra’s Adams Playhouse (performances Friday, Nov. 3 and Saturday, Nov. 4 at 8 pm. There is also a Sunday matinee at 2 pm on Nov. 5.
Admission prices are less than movies: $10 for adults, $8 for seniors. This is a vibrant, energetic show that will dazzle you. Box office information at (516) 463-5445, and there is lots of free, convenient parking.
Director Cindy Rosenthal and her staff have mounted the play in surprising ways. They also add some contemporary references and conclude “Hair” in a striking and dramatic way.
For pure entertainment, the choreography involving more than 30 energetic and talented performers and singers is worth the viewing by itself.
Some of the performances have talk-backs. When I attended last Saturday, hundreds of people stayed for three quarters of an hour after the show to raise questions, offer comments, and interact with the student actors who sat on the stage for the highly engaging discourse.
To be clear, folks can leave at the conclusion of the play or at any time during talk-back, but what speaks volumes about the impact of “Hair” is how many stayed and then remained for the entirety of the talk-back.
Beyond the superlatives appropriately heaped on Rosenthal and her ”tribe” (as they are termed in the show) were questions and comments that go to the heart of civic engagement and the challenges to fulfill democracy’s promises.
In 1967, “Hair” was at the cutting edge of theatrical and social change: an interracial cast, defying norms of conduct (from attire to language to sexuality to career materialism). Long hair was a symbol of a vast generation gap in the 1960s.
Today the actions of young people could be decisive in terms of what kind of future the United States has or, indeed, whether any future is insured for us – or for the globe – when the most powerful nation has a president who speaks casually about nuclear war (he had never heard of the nuclear triad when he was running for office).
Among Saturday’s many talk-back interactions were the responses by the talented student actors when an elder asked: Why isn’t today’s generation of youth as active as their peers in the 1960s?
One impressive student comment was that the cast began each rehearsal with some discussion of current events, a sign of extending awareness to what was happening in our society and the world. Several students commented that the experience of this play caused them to think more deeply about their roles as citizens and how all lives – not just Americans’ – are interconnected.
One of the actresses from this diverse cast, noted that her youth generation had an advantage not available to the Sixties generation, probably not used by as many elders: being connected to a host of social media options.
She and others emphasized their intent to build on those connections to do work for more just and inclusive societies.
When a comment was made about Hofstra’s active Center for Civic Engagement and the University’s new Institute for Peace Studies, the performers, to extended applause, indicated that the path from Hair to those initiatives was now clearer for them.
After the formal talk-back was concluded, some of the young and old continued the discourse. One younger elder asked if the Sixties youth would have been so active if they weren’t threatened by the draft and by connecting it with an unpopular and, in their view, unjust war.
This fruitful discussion questioned what proportion of Sixties counterculture youth “turned on and dropped out.”
How many challenged society only as it affected their personal lives, as opposed to working actively to reform the larger society?
Some of Bob Dylan’s own reform frustration may have characterized other young people who were ready “to fade into my own parade.”
However, the Dylan of 1964 was ahead of the curve, when he focused on young people who were helping to lead civil rights reform (think David Halberstam’s “The Children”) and early protests against the Vietnam War, nuclear arms, and a prescriptive establishment.
In “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Dylan captured a generation gap that is still evident today. as people over 65 have voted Republican in every election since 2000, while millennials, 18-29, have voted Democratic in all of those elections.
Dylan’s 1964 song has this generational verse, relevant to “Hair,” and to our times:
“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you cannot understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’”
At the Saturday performance several elders made it clear that they were not part of those over-65 voting trends, and they asked, properly, if those 18-29-year-olds had been doing their part in coming out to vote in elections, particularly in off years.
In 2017, 10,000 people a day turn 65, while 12,000 a day turn 18.
Whom do you think has a chance to shape our future as demographics are destiny?
