I've never been a big fan of hippies. Humorlessness is one of the unforgivable sins in my book, and most hippies I've known are drearily earnest. Put another way, if you honestly don't know why we can't all just get along and make love not war, you're probably not someone I want to spend a lot of time talking to.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for peace, love, and harmony. But I don't think sentimental ideas about human nature, aided by large quantities of drugs, are likely to help the cause.
My wife and I saw the Broadway revival of Hair last week. I took her for her birthday. My wife loves musicals the way few people love anything. At some point in virtually every musical, she weeps from an overload of joy. It is one of her loevliest characteristics.
Personally, I wasn't expecting much. Given my feelings about hippies, and my marginal appreciation of musicals, that's probably not surprising. But it turned out to be a very good show. Many of the songs are wonderful, and the cast is an explosion of energy and likability. They are in and out of the audience throught the show. While this usually sends me diving under my seat, there was some element of joy and inclusion in the way they did it that was totally infectious.
The second act is really where you get the best and worst of the show. The worst, unfortunately, comes first and lasts longer. One of the merry band of hippies, Claude, takes acid the night before he goes into the army. We are subsequently treated to a 20 minute bad trip/psychedelic-vaudeville-of-American-history that caused the greatest fit of watch-checking and leg-adjusting that I have seen in many a moon. This part of the show is truly embarrassing and, I think, unsalvagable. And have I mentioned that it is ENDLESS? At that point, I started to wish we had left at intermission.
I'm so glad we didn't. The last number, Let the Sun Shine In, was one of the most powerful things I've seen in a theatre in years. The song, as almost everyone knows, is an anthem of joy. It's almost impossible not to smile when you hear it. But in this production, all the hippies are huddled together as they sing it, holding candles. The body of Claude, recently killed in Vietnam, lies on an American flag behind them in a harsh white light. They sing the song desperately, as if it were a matter of life and death.
And maybe it is.
Earnest isn't always bad. Sophistication and nuance may be very important in discussing some things, but not this. Death is always difficult. But the violent death of young people, in a war as titanically misconceived as Vietnam or Iraq, is almost too much to bear. The simplicity of those kids trying to get the message of that song through - that life is beautiful, that it must be savored and treasured - did more to point out the horrifying waste of war than just about anything I've seen.
Maybe those hippies are on to something after all.
