I swear this has some political undertones in a minute, but please bear with me for just a little bit.
I am a theatre nerd. The majority of my iTunes is show tunes – this I confess. I have seen more shows than I can count, I have BEEN in more shows than I can count I follow Broadway news religiously, I can break into any random song for a multitude from shows (even if I haven’t seen them), and I can argue with you if you decide to fight with me.
The latter situation recently happened. While discussing Hair the Musical, I was told that “it’s not relevant to today’s society – so it shouldn’t be on Broadway today.” I was completely taken aback by this. Hair is not relevant to today’s society? What are these people thinking? I know that a lot of people don’t give two thoughts to Broadway shows, so here is a brief synopsis of Hair:
It takes place in Greenwich Village – 1968. It focuses around Claude Bukowski – a young boy from Oklahoma who comes to NYC to live with a tribe of Hippies (run by Berger). Berger falls in love with Sheila, a political activist from NYU. Claude is all happy go lucky for 70% of the musical until he is drafted to go to Vietnam.
I’m not going to go much further into that, but that’s the general story line. It may not seem like it is relevant to today’s society from that little plot summary – but if you dive into the show, it is so much more than that.
The entire time, these young people are protesting and displaying their political activism – that’s what the entire show is based around. Burning your draft card, picketing the induction center for the Army, trying to convince Claude to not go to Vietnam, telling others about the horrors of Vietnam.
How is this not relevant to today’s society, when we’re currently occupying a nation that wasn’t even the original target? Didn’t W. say that we were going to Afghanistan to find Osama Bin Laden in response to September 11th? And then he turned around and said “btw guys… Iraq has WMD!” So we go look for them and – GASP! – there weren’t any to even begin with! Now we’re in the middle east, trying to push Democracy onto a country that doesn’t even really want it, while our soldiers are being hurt (and killed) for this pointless war? /end soapbox
Going back to my original point- Hair is incredibly relevant to today’s society. That’s why they brought it back onto Broadway for a revival – they need to show it to a new generation. Look at any of the songs from the show… the message is incredibly clear – the lyrics just scream opposition and political activism.
The song Three-Five-Zero-Zero shows the horror of war, Don’t Put It Down shows how some people are literally fanatical and crazy about the American flag, Hare Krishna is an homage to the peace movement and protesting, and Let The Sun Shine In is a call to make the world a better place.
If that’s not relevant to today, I don’t know what is.
Katastrophic Konfessionals 