Ragni, Gerome - Benedict Nightingale
BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE
The beleaguered youth of Hair live precarious, vulnerable lives. If it isn't the fuzz, vindictively breaking up a harmless 'suck-in' on the steps of city hall, it's the New York winter, driving them out of the parks and into bare, draughty pads. If it isn't either, it's their own nagging sensibilities. They are touchy, curiously touching people, for all their brashness and exuberance. They take things hard, ludicrously so at times. When one of them rejects the gift of an admittedly hideous yellow shirt from his girl friend, she promptly breaks into a song about social injustice, moral indignity and most of the other human evils. They feel themselves hemmed in by pressures both blunt and insidious—hence the pot and the acid, and invocations of love and the defensive huddling together for warmth.
Innocent, naive perhaps; yet the sum effect isn't self-pitying. The music, if nothing else, sees to that. The song and dance is the best...
[The entire page is 413 words long]
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