Berger, Beethoven, and Bliss

A sizzling drum roll, a bass guitar groove, and that distinctive trumpet riff. With those pulsing measures that open “Aquarius,” I knew I was in for much more than a fun ’60s flashback. Hair. Outdoors. In Central Park. The 40th-anniversary revival production last Friday night was harmony and understanding, mystic crystal revelation, and way beyond the mind’s true liberation. And that was just the overture to a magical weekend whose coda belonged to Ludwig van Beethoven, on a mountain road high in the Berkshires.

New York City on a late-August evening could’ve been impossibly humid or stormy, given this summer’s violent weather. But we were lucky. It was heavenly. My friend Susan had bought tickets months ago (they miraculously survived her apartment fire) and we sat fifth-row center in the Delacorte amphitheater. We weren't exactly going get in line at 3 a.m. to nab free tickets. Not from Boston.

Truth be told, half the reason for securing advance seats was to see Jonathan Groff, of Spring Awakening, as Claude, the guy who gets drafted. I realize it’s embarrassingly unseemly for a 50-something woman and her 30-something friend to drive 200+ miles to drool over a 20-something actor, but Jonathan is, well, special. His face, his body, his voice, his intensity. He could make any reasonably sane (but deeply feeling) woman (or man, in his case) keel over in reverence. Because of a prior commitment, though, Groff would be gone before the end of the run. Oh no. But an actor named Christopher Hanke, blond and shiny and effervescent, stood in and he done good. Mad good, as my teenage clients say.

I’m not a bona fide Hair groupie like Susan, who’s been obsessed with the show since childhood. She played Sheila, the female lead, in an area production last fall and knows the score and the script (such as it is) inside out. I sang a cheesy choral arrangement of “Aquarius” for Munich High School’s graduation ceremonies in 1969. But Hair is my era, my youth. The minute those opening chords sailed out from the onstage bandstand, I was gone. As in transported. It was perfect staging, electric dancing, authentic costumes, breezy air, naked bodies, peace and love and the psychedelic energy of a cloudless summer night.

And then Will Swenson, the hunky actor playing the Tribe’s leader, Berger, danced with Susan. The cast was cavorting throughout the theater during the title song. Will undoubtedly had spotted Susan on the aisle in her peace earrings and Bohemian dress, moving as much as one can without making a spectacle but restraining herself, I imagine, from simply jumping onto the grassy proscenium to merge with the Tribe.

Will swiftly navigated a few rows and barriers and, in a blurry flash of denim and beads and bare-chested sweat, extended his hands to Susan, who instantly rose to mirror his figure-eight head-flailing tangle of hair in an ecstatic swirl of rock and roll and pure luv. I was breathless. The people next to me whooped. After he bounded back onto the stage, Will reached out his hands, wiggled his fingers toward Susan, and raised his eyebrows, once. Stunned yet calm, Susan gave him a quick, gracious thumbs-up, and fell back in her seat.

For the finale, catharsis not yet complete, the audience was invited on stage for “Let the Sunshine In.” As many as could fit, anyway. It’s been decades since I was at a Be-In or any kind of -In. Propelled by my neighbors, Susan long since disappeared into the mass, I began jumping, twirling, screaming, singing, waving my arms above my head, not even breathing or thinking, just being, along with dozens of euphoric strangers and the wonderful, hairy cast. And lightning didn’t strike. And, for that moment, all was well with the world.

By the next night, we’d visited with my dynamo cousin Bobby, cruised the Upper West Side, sampled organic smoked salmon at Zabar’s, watched my brother, Don, play piano for a silent film at MOMA, caught ten minutes of the tantalizing Dali exhibit, had a yummy Italian dinner in a too-noisy restaurant with my parents in White Plains, and headed to the hills of northwestern Connecticut to Don’s home.

Sunday afternoon, Don, Susan, and I went to Falls Village, where we climbed down a steep hill to a swimming hole. Across a medium-size pond studded with rocks, the powerful waterfalls beckoned. I try not to think of myself as phobic about too many things. But swimming across the pond without being able to touch the bottom is one of them. Maybe it’s a control thing. Maybe it’s the fact that I never learned to swim well. So I chose to scuttle slowly along the algae-covered rocks and watch daredevil children jump off the cliffs, while Don and Susan swam against the current to frolic under the falls.

After a while, I was relieved to climb carefully up the hill to the car, where we headed off for a real lake, where I could do my kind of swimming. Sidestroke, parallel with the shore. Kind of like those old ladies in the ocean with their pink-floral rubber bathing caps and flabby arms. But I didn’t care. I’ll be an old lady if it means being able to touch the bottom.

Don started the engine. It was 4:00, Sunday, August 24. On the car radio, we heard four words, Alle Menschen werden Brüder, enough for instant ecstasy: Beethoven’s Ninth, live from Tanglewood! “All men will become brothers.” Susan and I have sung it countless times, including with Tanglewood at the United Nations for the 1998 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Bumping along the rocky dirt road up Mt. Riga toward the lake, past verdant hills and meadows flocked with horses, then deep into the shadowy woods, we cranked the volume and sang, Susan on soprano, me on alto, Donnie improvising impeccably as always, shushing ourselves to hear how the chorus pulled off the scary parts, melting at their perfectly executed crescendos and pianissimos, swooning and swaying and flinging our arms and legs and heads, now to Beethoven not Hair, but it’s all the same, isn’t it? Joy, peace, love, brotherhood, sisterhood, music, dancing, bodies in motion, bliss and gratitude. Let the sunshine in. Mad amazing.

And when we arrived at the lake, the water was cool and placid and inviting. I strode in and dunked and dog-paddled and sidestroked, knowing I could stand on the soft, sandy bottom whenever I needed to.