Note: I gave this review at Toastmasters this evening as a speech. I had fun writing it this morning, hope you enjoy it too!

“Hair” is exuberant, creative, lively, noisy mayhem. Many adjectives describe “Hair.” It is almost non-stop singing. A rock opera. Even after all these years – it still stands out.

Starting on Broadway in 1967  – the musical reflects both the utter joy and bewilderment of being 17 to 20 years old. “Hair” has almost no plot; just like a 17-year-old has little internal guidance. Wildly shocking in its day – for many reasons and on many levels. Now, it is almost an historical piece about the Baby Boomer hippies when they were in their late teens.

Though I would like to skip all of that – to talk more personally about the play. I like “Hair” – because I have lived my life in the shadow of the people the musical depicts: baby boomer hippies.

I have always been just behind them – by about 10 years. When “Hair” was big, I was in first grade.

I became personally aware of hippies in Junior High and High School. There were two groups of teachers: the been-there-forever older teachers living “in their box” and the then late 20’s hippies, who moved out of the city and into the country. Some were bra-less. Most were largely without boundaries.       

Across my life, I have responded to situations in a similar manner as my two groups of school teachers: Either I have clearly been “in the box” or clearly “out of the box” in my behavior. Which has always made sense to me. Though not always to the people around me.

As the years went by – when I was in my early 20’s, just out of college. These baby boomers were 30-somethings and making waves at the company where we all worked. They were now a super competitive and noisy group. I really had to jump to keep up.

So “Hair” gives me a glimpse into their lives when I was too young to know them. It is a wonderful glimpse – both – of the late 60’s – and the weird time we all went through between leaving school and entering adulthood regardless of what year the calendar said it was.  

The Vietnam War and the military draft into the service loomed large over the kids in “Hair.” I missed that too. The draft was over by the time I was a high school senior. An older cousin went to theology college to miss the draft and would have become an illegal immigrant to Canada had he been drafted. In time the Vietnam War ended. Though the returning vets – near all were broken in various ways – were my friend’s older siblings, cousins, or uncles. Families around me had triangle-shaped wooden boxes with a US flag inside and the attendant black hole around it. Vietnam vets were my coworkers and neighbors across the ‘80s and ‘90s. We worked to give them a lot of space and support.

The theater group did update the production to 2023 with mixed results. The cast’s sexual expression has been updated with most of them being bi and/or trans. One of the lead roles is individually involved with a man and a woman. These changes largely worked. One cast member was single and pregnant. 

I recall in seventh grade there was a wonderful student teacher, who became pregnant. I do not recall if she was married or single at the time. Two or three days after telling us she was pregnant – she was fired and we never saw her again. Being pregnant and working was not allowed then. The next year, a different teacher became pregnant and we became very concerned about her. She did work through her pregnancy and returned afterward. Times were thankfully slowly changing.  

Though “Hair” itself is firmly based “in the moment” – of kids lounging in the park, chatting, getting stoned with the wonderment and newness of everything. Before they understood the meaning of the phrase, “personal potential.” The play expresses this wonderfully with the music: twenty songs, each with a solo are all sung by different cast members – getting their time to share their voice and story. Instead of the usual musical where two or three leads perform most of the songs.  

So, I suggest you purchase a ticket to “Hair” and go back in time to when you were 18 or 19 and spend a couple of hours reliving the utter joy and bewilderment of those days.

Thank you!