Blog post #5 (open post)

I am in a theatre class that requires me to watch the plays that go on at UCF and to then write a paper on the plays. The most recent play I had to see was Hair. Hair is a play that is placed in the 1960s during the Vietnam war era. There are several social issues that revolve around Hair, including war, sex, pollution, drugs, segregation, and civil disobedience. The plot centers around Claude and his group of hippie friends who do drugs, dance and try to find truth. Claude is sent a draft card, and some of his friends are drafted as well. All of Claude's friends burn their draft cards, and they try to get Claude to burn his as well. Claude does not burn his draft card and ends up getting shot and killed in Vietnam. The main subject of my paper was the conflict Claude had internally between the pressure from his friends to be involved with civil disobedience, and the pressure from his parents and society to get a job and go to the army. This conflict and pressure could be seen clearly in the scene where Claude takes LSD and has a trip. During this trip he sees men jumping from a helicopter in Vietnam. He also sees his friends dancing. There was a lot of passion in the show and I can understand why. Being drafted is a life changing, and often life ending event. Also, if I had to be drafted and killed then it had better be for a really good reason, but Vietnam was pointless, which makes this all the more tragic. There was a scene in the play in which the actors were nude. This scene was shocking and overwhelming, but fit the theme of the play. I just so happened to be an usher for this play as well. Every night during the nude scene I had to watch the audience with a flashlight in my hand. My job was to make sure no one was recording or taking pictures. I'm glad to say I had no problems with the audience, but I got to see more than I wanted when watching the show.