‘Hair’ is Back

 

 

Hair is back on Broadway – and if you’re over 60, a lot of other places, too.

 

When the musical first opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theater on April 29, 1968, the hair in question referred to the stuff on the heads of the generation then in their early twenties and just discovering that you could really tick off your parents if you let your hair grow so big you needed a bushel basket for a hat.

 

That generation – my generation – was the same one that protested against the war in Vietnam, thought it invented sex, and vowed to never trust anyone over 30. And hair was the membership badge. Whether as mutton chop-sideburns, frosted and streaked ‘fros, three-foot-ironing board ponytails or Prince Valiant locks, hair was how we said to the world “I’m here – look at me!”

 

So Hair the musical was of and for the Boomer generation, The Age of Aquarius was an anthem and the new age would last forever.

 

Forever for the musical turned out to be running for 1,750 performances. The Boomers are running still, although a lot of us have switched to something called “power walking,” a thinly disguised form of “still walking under our own power.” And starting anything,  especially a song, with the words “The Age…” just makes us cranky.

 

We switched positions on a lot of other things, too, like wars, and free love and having to trust folks over 30 because you soon hardly knew anyone under 30 – and then 40, 50 and. . .

 

But as Hair the musical reopened in a Broadway revival on March 31, most of us could say that our personal hair remained a generational badge.

 

But we now wear the badge differently.

 

For guys, the issue is not so much wearing hair over your ears as having it grow from your ears. And your nose and knuckles and back and, well, just about any place you don’t want it to grow. As for growing it on your head, you’ve now been admitted to the secret of why old men wear caps all the time.

 

For women, it’s the age of Cover Girl – not the magazine, but what you’ve got to do when you kiss your grandson and he says “Grandma, that tickles!” Or Bleach Girl. Or, when mush comes to stash, new uses for The Razor That Lives In The Shower.

 

Neither sex is going to discuss changes to That Other Hair, except to pass on this wisdom for future generations: hair dye kits can really, really sting.

 

As for the anthem The Age of Aquarius, it ends with the repeated lyric “Let the sun shine, Let the sun shine in. The sun shine in.”

Somehow “SPF 50, Use SPF 50, SPF 50” isn’t the same.

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EDS – Larry Blasko said will be sporadic next week. Happy Holidays to all! --LGB