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A VIEW FROM THE AUDIENCE
by JOSEPH GALE
....thanks to "Beatlemania"

Bennett, my son, was born into a classical music family, surrounded by thousands of recordings and books about music and dance. His father, a newspaper critic, had carried him to his first concert when was six months old.
   Predictably, later, Bennett embraced rock 'n' roll.  It was the era for it.  He chose the drums for his instrument and sought to emulate Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. He went to college and organized three rock bands at separate intervals. With one of them he recorded a single for MGM Records. 
   Bennett was good. He was very good. And as a product of his times he preched The Beatles and the gospel of the whole spaced-out age. From my position on Olympus (dreading to lose him) I agreed with deaf ears and returned to Mahler.
   Eighteen years later as part of a still slowly-upward odyssey, Bennett entered the cast of Beatlemania at the Winder Garden Theatre as the look-alike impersonator of Ringer Starr. My wife and I attended his opening night out of some duty but much pleasure, of course. There was not the slightest clue that I was about to experience a tremendously moving evening in the theatre. 
   The show is thrilling, and for me even inspirational, but there these perhaps suspect remarks should end. The point is not how good the show is, but what it did for me. I discovered to my amazement that I had lived through the brutal 1960's without any real idea what the revolution was all about.  History had shaken me like a rag doll and left me uncomprehending. 
   In the two hours of Beatlemania I understood a decade and a generation. Do you have idea how cataclysmic such a revelation can be?  In the midst of the screaming, cheering, whistling, yelling crowd about me, I understood the genius of the Beatles; the nature of rock, the savage, elemental beat, even the raison d'etre for amplification. I understood as if by divine disclosure the nature of the revolt, the yearning behind "Make love, not war," and the other homilies.
   The music, the remarkable visuals, the vitality throbbing in the theatre all helped. It wasn't only that it was my son up there and his crew. I understood Woodstock and Newport, hippies and dropouts, the courage at Kent State, the savagery in Chicago, the gallantry at Selma. I'm not saying I signed up, but at last I understood, and in understanding found much to cheer about
   A broadway show did that for me. Now I am the product of my own time and shall ever belong to The sleeping Beauty and La fille mal gardee, to Palestrina, Bartok and Tchaikovsky. But at the Winter Garden a part of me separated and fled to the young. Wherever they are, that is henceforth where I want to be.
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Have you had an experience (funny, sad, enlightening) in the theatre, which has had a special meaning for you? Submit your manuscript (700 words or less) to PLAYBILL, Dept. AV, 151 E. 50th St., NYC 10022. We will pay $100 for any manuscript we publish.
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