hair may not be said to have a grasp on reality, but it had its foot in reality's stomach. Inner City (at the Ethel Barrymore, music by Helen Miller and lyrics by Eve Merriam) now its next door neighbor on Broadway and, O'Horgan's fourth uptown show, is a more cautious and tentative adventure.

There are 57 numbers which take place like mini demonstrations at the feet of giant sets, which had a classic, measured stability that sometimes made its people seem like fleas.  People were unceasingly in movement, and especially because the words were sometimes hard to grasp, I remember the sets much better than the action.  But Linda Hopkins, who sings of love and menstruation, is unquestionably one of the glories of the black gospel tradition;  Carl Hall has a cracked, crazy singing lilt that made his street sermon seem like a state of the union message;  Allan Nicholls as a dealer, and the incomparable Florence Tarlow representing the middle class, are other members of a show that dubs itself a "Street Cantata"

"Inner City" is a guilt musical, and as such it was appropriately kicked off by a bit of white baiting - the only time in the show - by Linda Hopkins.  What basically came out of it were confused vibes.  The middle-class dream has failed because the middle class turns out not to be really inclusive.  Yet Inner City, a musical which includes the dissident black minority and tried to arouse the guilt of middle-class audiences, is itself an act of middle-class inclusiveness which diffuses the meaning of minority emotion.  The context which makes those emotions meaningful gets confused and diffuse, generalized guilt flows in all directions, generating pointless episodes.  For meaningful statements to happen, middle-class guilt should be starved, not fed.  The push should be towards coalition, not inclusiveness.  Inner City wants to celebrate the independence, strength and glamour of black rebelliousness, but can't seem to grasp that these things have meaning in terms of the black position, not in terms of the white reaction.  So the attitudes of the musical remain stuck in terms of the mechanisms of middle-class guilt, like a mirror that smashes itself over and over.

The pitch that Inner City wants to make for its thieves, hustlers, and dealers is that they are not merely glamorous and relevant - they are respectable.  But while respectability may be a virtue to the policeman, it will always, thank God, be a vice to Bohemians like these.  And this is a fact that should be celebrated, not compromised.  The words and occasionally the music of Inner City get close to the nitty gritty but its central stance thwarts the energies it should release.

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