THE MOUNTAIN PLAY: HAIR
HAIR
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Director James Dunn has correctly chosen HAIR for the Mountain Play this year.
As anyone with a sense of history or plugged into the local media would know, this is the 40th anniversary of the San Francisco Summer of Love.
Without sounding like an anthropologist or sociologist, let us say that that the first shoes to be thrown into the gear train of the Vietnam War Machine were tossed from Golden Gate Park in 1967 when the lovers of Peace and Freedom kicked off their Penny Loafers and Pumps and donned sandals; and dropped their pants and trousers to don bell bottoms.
Herb Caen, quick to attach monikers and forge neologisms, called this 60s evolution of the 50s Beatniks: Hippies.
The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean had already turned America's youth culture toward California, so it was not long before clones of California Hippies began cropping up like dandelions in New York's Central Park.
The result was the East Coast Hippie, the eventual hardball radicalization of the gentle Hippie philosophy and the smash Broadway Hit: HAIR.
The show is set in 1967 and the anti-war movement, given the trepidation with which draft cards were burned in it, was only in its meek nascent stages.
Politically, HAIR was a long ways from the show down at Kent State, the SDS and the explosive Weathermen.
HAIR expresses a romantically arrogant belief that the cosmos is merely a calendar for civilization.
As Hipparchus first postulated circa 147 B.C.E. the earth's axis of rotation is precessing like a spinning top winding down.
One complete precession takes about 26,000 years, or one Platonic Year.
The progress or the precession can be tracked by observing either the current pole star or the sign of the Zodiac that occupies the zenith during on the night of the vernal equinox.
Given the rudimentary instruments of measurement and that the precession rate is only 1 degree every 71.6 years, one might wonder how Hipparchus recognized what was happening on such a grand, protracted time scale.
The basket weaver crowd likes to imagine we are presently basking in the Age of Aquarius.
Presently the vernal equinox is actually in the constellation Pisces, but it is slowly approaching Aquarius; hence the lyrics: "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius."
Without looking at the night sky, we can be certain the peace has yet to begin to "rule the planet" nor that love has yet to "guide the stars."
Bush is in the Whitehouse; our country is being run by plutocrats, oligarchs and kleptocrats; not by cosmic revelation nor mystic intuition.
The influence of petroleum is presently trumping any inputs from love, harmony or peace.
Eventually, when the vernal equinox does hit Aquarius standby for utopia, because according to astrological mysticism and related hokum there will be unusual harmony and understanding in the world.
Perhaps then we will be able to understand the tax code and the meaning of parking signs in San Francisco.
While the astrologers may argue otherwise, it seems unlikely that the political and social climate of the planet will ever be influenced by such irrelevancies as which sign of the Zodiac dominates the vernal equinox.
Regardless of whether we were being influenced by stars or quality Marijuana seeping through the borders, the Summer of Love in 1967 is not to be forgotten.
One of the finest pieces of writing ever tapped out by Hunter S. Thompson acknowledges the very special aura created by Flower Power in San Francisco.
To quote from FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS: "San Francisco in the middle 60s was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time in the world, whatever it meant. There was madness in any direction; at any hour you could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right; that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle: That sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense—we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum. We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west. And with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark: that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
If you were alive and well in the late 1960s, whether you were stoned or straight, against the war or apathetic, part of the silent majority or the vocal minority, you need to revisit those special times via HAIR.
Prior to the show you need to abandon two hopes.
Firstly, that there will be nudity: James Dunn has prudishly bowdlerized the play.
HAIR is now fit for the hormone driven under-18 crowd and the pacemaker driven over-60 crowd.
You have been warned: do not attempt to have the price of your ticket refunded because you did not get to see sufficient T and A.
Secondly, do not expect the songs to sound like they do on vinyl, your 8-tract, your reel to reel or your CDs.
There are however some exceptional voices in the show: Susan Zehinsky being the most noteworthy.
For a delightful afternoon of nostalgia and sylvan gaiety, call the box office at 415-383-1100 or type in www.MountainPlay.org.
See what's free at AOL.com.