dines with in the Adams House Dining Room, than the trivialized hippies they portray in Hair. . After two years, they still sense a faint idealism that a part in Hair is qualitatively different for an actor of our generation than another Broadway role. But the Hair people have no pretensions about being the vanguard of American youth on the eve of the Aquarium Age.

Alan Nicholas, who plays either Claude, the hero, or Berger, his sidekick, was formerly a rock recording star in Canada. He came to Hair eight months ago with no previous acting experience except the satire and improvisation his singing group used to do.

I asked Nicholls about the actor's commitment to his role in Hair. "I'm afraid of the word 'actor' because I don't know what it means. "His performance had been superb that night, but he nevertheless said modestly, "If I'm an actor, I don't know it." Assistant director Danny Sullivan had told Nicholls that "acting is just knowing what the character is supposed to be and then just taking those traits in the character that you have and amplifying them."

Copping Out

We discussed the mythology surrounding Hair and its curious position among the expectations of American youth. Nicholls told me that "one girl wrote in that it was a real copout" when he'd done a pimple commercial on television. I asked him how he felt. "Being here is copping out. Getting a paycheck every week is copping out if you want to profess the life that we profess onstage."

"How many people in Hair profess that life style?"

"No one in this play; otherwise they wouldn't accept the paycheck."

"I did it because my manager said, 'There's a commercial for you, why don't you do it? It'd be a good experience- expand your career- get you some good money in case you're out of work someday."

"Is there any kind of idealism associated with being in Hair that would be absent in another kind of play?" I asked.

"You can learn more in this play You can learn more about yourself. Here, you learn the honest reactions of other people- right here on our stage. You also learn that someday, you, might like to have this type of life."

He told me that he would probably never act in another Broadway production, unless it would permit the actors the same kind of natural honesty. "This thing, like I can change when I want to onstage," he said. "I can act the way I want. Tonight, I wasn't feeling good during the first act. and I showed it. That's okay, It's an honest reaction."

Denise Delapenha, who played Sheila, agreed with Nicholls about the Hair actor's latitude in expressing originality. "Under the present direction, there's a lot of freedom," she said, "because the director is sometimes a head." She added, "This is a freedom to be true to yourself, but not to be a bitch. There's a difference- a certain stage commitment that even people who have never acted before must realize, and are made to realize."

I'd thought she had portrayed the most convincing emotion onstage that night when she belted out hurt anger over someone's ripping a yellow cloth to shreds. Jonathan Kramer later concurred. "Her performance is so original," he said. "She plays Sheila like a Virgo. I mean, she plays it like a real cunt with backbone. She's the best Sheila I've seen in years."

The evening's naturalist was Sally Eaton. The words, "Welcome, sulfur dioxide. Hello, carbon monoxide. The air, the air is everywhere" emerge in Air with the freshness of a girl totally removed from the polluted world of New York City, Miss Eaton plays an innocent girl with a giant stomach. She wins the sympathy of every mother and father in the house as she tells them of the boy she loves, and the speed freak who knocked her up.

Early in the life of Hair, she was in deed pregnant, and it was thought that she was going to have her baby onstage. Someone even claimed that Andy Warhol had taken pictures of her child's birth for Avant- Garde magazine. In terms of Hair, another tribesman paid Sally Eaton the ultimate compliment in likening her dressing room to Alices Restaurant; I regretted having missed that scene.

As the cast began to filter out the door, Keith I am Carradine, the sensitive, unassuming hero of the show, removed his Indian headband, put on a more comfortable stovepipe hat, and took me over to the Haymarket, a nearby bar. I was there introduced to George Hirsch, Jessica Harper, and Jonathan Kramer.