Flash Back for Father's Day

[pope]

Is your dad a hippie-climber? Is his hair longer than your mom’s? Was he the first to teach you how to sling a hex nut and grow herb? Does he visit your house for weeks at a time and then split when the phone bill arrives? Does he adhere to a strict diet of brown rice and tofu hotdogs, then deplete your supply Twinkies and Ding-Dongs after smoking grass and licking psychedelic postage stamps all evening?

 

Take him to see HAIR at the 5th-Avenue (ends April 21), as an early Fathers’ Day gift. He’ll see and hear a parade of colorful characters dancing a carefree step to 1960’s anthems as HAIR celebrates the “culture” of your father’s youth. Be prepared for strong language (the word “f#ck” is heard more frequently than in Good Fellas), frequent drug references and swinging mammaries and sex organs (my mother-in-law was impressed by the display of sausage....but all of us forgot to check to see if the character Burger is really as hung as he boasts). You may wish first to familiarize yourself with the music as the sound quality and level made it difficult to hear the lyrics. Although the first act is slow to generate dramatic momentum, the conclusion of the second act had nearly every observer dancing and singing, and I left with the impression that I had missed an enormous amount of fun three decades ago.