HAIR

Debut 1967
Lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni
Music by Galt MacDermot.

Age of Aquarius
Backing Track

The musical follows "The Tribe", a group of politically active friends, long-haired "Hippies of the Age of Aquarius" fighting against conscription to the Vietnam War and living a bohemian life together in an apartment in New York City. Among them are Claude, the nominal group leader; Berger, an irreverent free spirit; Sheila, a New York University (NYU) film student who is in love with both of them, and who is the most focused political activist of the group; Woof a bisexual gentle soul; Jeanie, who is in love with Claude but pregnant by another man; Hud, a Black Panther; Crissy; and Dionne, among others, who are struggling to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution with their pacifist rebellion against the war and the conservative impulses of their parents and society.
When the men of The Tribe receive a draft notice, they conduct a burning ceremony at a Be-In and destroy their draft cards, except for Claude. Ultimately, he goes to fight in Vietnam, as each member of The Tribe reluctantly releases him. Sheila's "good-bye" to Claude includes the gift of sex. Symbolically, the sub-plot of Claude's repeated failure to burn his draft card can be interpreted as a hippie take on Hamlet, whose inability to take decisive action causes his demise. The symbolism is carried into the last scene, where Claude appears as a ghostly spirit among his friends wearing an army uniform[citation needed] in an ironic echo of an earlier scene, where he says, "If I was invisible, I could do anything!"