form of a show within a show. While we are watching actors on the stage, we are also watching them act on a primary stage. This theatrical device can almost be seen as a form of alienation. We realise we are not the audience being entertained, they are on the stage, we are the privileged audience that sees the real life story. We are thus encouraged to absorb the meaning of the story and the subtext. Described as a tribal love-rock musical, Hair (Appendix 1 - C) was an innovation of its time. It was a presentation of a way of life, not a story. The play was written by two hippies, who took starring roles, and the rest of the original cast were not trained performers but real people showing the audience how they lived their life. It was a simply a depiction of their lifestyle, the alternative to the strived for American Dream. It was to offer the audience a different view of life, to show that there is freedom in love and sex, freedom from the constraints of society and the freedom to take drugs. It was the first musical of the hippie peace and love generation. It is still poignant today, as the social comments are still true. Corporate wealth, challenged in Hair, still rules in society today. Strong language and nudity ensured a measure of shock value. ...It (Hair) finds in the vocabulary of life a language which is free from clich, which has a coinage that is funny, surprising, and rich.# The characters speak of sex, masturbation and drugs. All taboos in previous Broadway shows. They confront the audience and ask why we find these words abhorrent. It is the bourgeois middle class theatre audience that expected these constraints. While being entertaining, Hair also had a strong message about their disapproval of the Vietnam War. The song 3-5-0-0 is a song about the average number of American casualties every month in Vietnam. It is easy to just mistake it as a nice song on first hearing it. Because of its irreverence and contemporary a...
