In 1971, Denver police would not let the sunshine in. Or anything else to do with the pro-love, anti-war rock musical “Hair.”
The counterculture Broadway freakout, making its way from New York to cities across the country for the first time, had been booked for a week-long run at the downtown Auditorium Theatre. But when the company arrived, Denver police told them to keep right on moving. There would be nothing to see here. Certainly not a brief scene in which some of the actors celebrate the hippie credo of sexual freedom by stripping.
The vice bureau invoked a seldom-used (but still existing) law banning public nudity, as had other cities before Denver.
“They threatened to arrest anyone who showed up on that stage in the nude,” said retired Denver police Capt. Jerry Kennedy. Local promoter Robert Garner faced possible arrest, as well, so he scrambled to move the hot-button show to Boulder’s Macky Auditorium — where it sold out every performance.
By the next year, a dozen “Hair” productions were being performed simultaneously in the United States alone, building a worldwide audience of 30 million people in just four years. Its impact on the social, cultural and political dialogue in the country was unmistakable.
The contradiction between its box-office success and vigilant efforts to stop it wherever it went was a microcosm for a nation divided like a pair of ripped bell-bottoms.
Kennedy said Denver’s nudity law has been in place “since time immemorial,” but he can’t think of any other time it has ever been enforced for a theatrical performance. And he doesn’t see it becoming an issue again when a revival of the 43-year-old musical phenomenon arrives in Denver on Tuesday for a two-week run that will likely stir more fashion nostalgia than fear and trepidation this time through.
“That was a very different time,” said Kennedy. “It was free love, drugs, and rock and roll — all the things that made a lot of people uncomfortable, all in one place.”
War was raging in Vietnam, and Jupiter was not aligned with Mars. People were on edge. Just three months before the aborted “Hair” visit to Denver, cops had dropped tear gas from helicopters on a Jethro Tull concert at Red Rocks, ending live music there for the next five years.
“Hair” met with resistance all along the line. Church pickets in Evansville, Ind. A fire marshal in Gladewater, Texas, threatened to close the theater. In St. Paul, Minn., a clergyman reportedly released 18 mice into the lobby to frighten theatergoers. In Tennessee, an attorney predicted that a legal challenge to “Hair” there would threaten to overshadow the Scopes Monkey trial.
Detractors protested on both artistic and moral grounds, arguing that the show’s treatment of the American flag was both inappropriate and irresponsible in a time of war.
Back on Broadway, where the show had been playing since 1968, astronauts Jim Lovell and Jack Swigert walked out in protest of the flag being turned upside down. The Boston visit was challenged in court on the basis of flag desecration.
Current “Hair” cast member Tripp Fountain, a Colorado native, says that’s a misreading of what that stage moment is about. “It causes some alarm whenever we turn a flag upside-down,” he said, “but that is not disrespectful — it is a distress signal.”
The Boston run continued with the flag scene removed, but the legal challenge continued to the Supreme Court on the claim that the show was “lewd and lascivious.”
But those and other incidents were trivial compared with what happened in April 1971, when the show attracted a record 80,000 Clevelanders over seven weeks, including the mayor, paying $7.50 each.
In the first week, dynamite was discovered in front of the theater. A few weeks later, during a performance, an arsonist set fire to the hotel where 33 members of the company and their families were staying. Among the seven dead were two wives and two 1-year-old children of cast members.
It was never officially determined whether there was a direct connection to the show. But on its final day in Cleveland, a bomb thrown from a passing vehicle damaged the front of the theater and blew out windows in surrounding storefronts.
And all of that played into the cold reception “Hair” got when it arrived in Denver. “It had so much controversy and negative publicity prior to coming to Denver, they were ready for it,” Kennedy said of his vice counterparts.
And not entirely without cause.
Indianapolis had a similar ban on public nudity, and city authorities suggested the actors wear “body stockings, mesh bras or pasties.” Not only did the actors refuse, they decided the closing performance there would be the ideal time to go on a communal, on-stage magic carpet ride.
Ted Lange, better known as Isaac the bartender on “The Love Boat,” was an actor on that tour. He says he was greeted at the stage door by the girlfriend of another actor. “She had a palm full of pills, and she was passing them out as the actors went out on stage,” said Lange. “I said no, because I do not do drugs, and she said, ‘C’mon, it’s just speed!’ “
But it wasn’t speed — it was acid.
“Only about six or seven of us refused to take it,” Lange said. “All of a sudden, in the middle of the show, people started talking strange. Some people were laughing hysterically; others were crying. We found out later they wanted all of us to drop acid together as a bonding thing.”
Talk about the Age of Aquarius.
Among his memories of that week in Boulder, Garner said, “I do remember there were a lot of drugs.”
Kennedy said that attitude was endemic of a proliferating drug culture that was fostered, of all places, by the highest court in the land.
“The Supreme Court took the lid off drugs back in 1961,” Kennedy said of a ruling that said the Fourth Amendment, which mandated the need for judicially issued warrants to execute searches, applied to states as well.
“There was no such thing as a search warrant before then. No one even knew how to draw one up — not even the D.A. Until then, if you even touched the stuff (drugs), you were gone.”
But the court’s action, he said, “turned college campuses into sanctuaries for drug use.”
Reaction to “Hair” in those days was not universally confrontational. San Franciscans so embraced its messages that real-life hippies often jumped up on stage. But in Norway, local citizens formed a human barricade to try to block it. In London, a legal challenge to “Hair” there backfired when Parliament issued a ruling that outlawed governmental stage censorship. But in Mexico back in 1969, the cast was expelled from the country on a morals clause.
Whether in 1971 or 2011, the nudity and drug content is still part of the essential “Hair” identity. But Fountain thinks those who would gird their loins over the loins of the show “have maybe not done all their research,” he said.
“You hear about the nudity, the drugs, the war protest, and it gets turned into something anti-American,” he said. “But the fact is, the hippies loved America. And I like to think that love comes through in the show.”
And he thinks the nudity is more an issue for audiences before they see it than after. The scene was played then in dim light and was virtually invisible. And that irony is not lost on the retired Denver cop. “If you blinked, you missed it,” Kennedy said. “It’s kind of funny that after all that — it didn’t really amount to much.”
Denver Post library staff contributed to this report. John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Hair” in Denver: Ticket information
Tribal-rock musical. National touring production at the Buell Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets. Written by Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt MacDermot. Directed by Diane Paulus. Opening Tuesday, through Oct. 16. 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays; also 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9. $25-$105. 303-893-4100 or denvercenter.org
This week’s theater openings
Opening Tuesday, Oct. 4, through Oct. 16: National touring production of “Hair,” at the Buell Theatre
Opening Tuesday, Oct. 4, through Oct. 25: 73rd Avenue Theatre Company’s “The Vagina Monologues” (Tuesdays only) Westminster
Opening Thursday, Oct. 6, through Oct. 30: Denver Center Theatre Company’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” at the Stage Theatre
Opening Thursday, Oct. 6, through Oct. 16: Arvada Center’s “Ragtime,” at the Lone Tree Arts Center
Opening Friday, Oct. 7, through Oct. 16: Performance Now’s “Meet Me in St. Louis” Lakewood
Opening Friday, Oct. 7, through Oct. 22: Naropa’s “The Tempest” Boulder
Opening Friday, Oct. 7, through Oct. 9: Stage Left’s “I Am My Own Wife” Salida
Opening Friday, Oct. 7, through Oct. 29: The Bug’s “Night of the Living Dead” (with PaperCat Films)
Opening Friday, Oct. 7, through Oct. 30: Cherry Creek Theatre’s “The Unexpected Guest”
Opening Friday, Oct. 7, through Oct. 16: Steel City Theatre Company’s “Nunsense,” at Central High School Pueblo
Opening Friday, Oct. 7, through Oct. 31: Mercury Cafe Motley Players’ “Making a Killing”
This week’s theater closings
Sunday, Oct. 2: Arvada Center’s “Ragtime”
Sunday, Oct. 2: Curtains Up’s “Carousel” Wheat Ridge
Saturday, Oct. 8: LIDA Project’s “Justin Bieber Meets Al Qaeda,” at Laundry on Lawrence
Sunday, Oct. 9: Denver Center Attractions’ “Love, Sex and the Second City,” at the Galleria Theatre
Sunday, Oct. 9: OpenStage’s “33 Variations” Fort Collins
Sunday, Oct. 9: Aurora Fox’s “Rashomon”
Sunday, Oct. 9: TheatreWorks’ “The 39 Steps” Colorado Springs
Sunday, Oct. 9: 73rd Avenue Theatre’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” Westminster
Sunday, Oct. 9: Parker Arts Council’s “Steel Magnolias”
Most recent theater openings
 |
“Assassins” New Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center artistic director Scott RC Levy debuts with Stephen Sondheim’s groundbreaking musical that gathers nine historical oddballs, from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated (or tied to) U.S. presidents. Through Oct. 23. 30 W. Dale St., 719-634-5583 or csfineartscenter.org
“Driving Miss Daisy” Alfred Uhry’s 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winner, starring the Denver Center Theatre Company veteran Harvy Blanks, follows a black chauffeur as he drives a rich Jewish widow for 25 years. Through Oct. 16. Lake Dillon Theatre Company, 176 Lake Dillon Dr., 970-513-9386 or lakedillontheatre.org
“God’s Ear” Regional premiere of a surreal new play by Jenny Schwartz that follows one young couple as they struggle to stay afloat after the death of their son — replete with tooth fairies and transvestite flight attendants. Through Oct. 15. Presented by the Catamounts at the Dairy Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder, 720-468-0487 or thecatamounts.org
“The Grapes of Wrath” John Steinbeck’s epic drama follows the Joad family as they journey from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression. It’s staged here in a 69-seat theater, with three live musicians. Through Oct. 30. Vintage Theatre, 2119 E. 17th Ave., 303-839-1361 or vintagetheatre.com
“Here Be Dragons” In this rumination on the origins of homosexuality, a severe electrical storm seemingly transports a gay man from his bed in a Texas hotel room to the living room of two college friends who wonder whether God is reaching out to him. Through Nov. 12. Dangerous Theatre, 2620 W. Second Ave., 720-233-4703 or dangeroustheatre.com. And here’s a 10-page script sample.
“The House of Blue Leaves”John Guare’s dark and bizarre 1971 pop-culture satire is about a never-was songwriter whose impossible dream is to break into the movies, and the menagerie of oddball characters back at home. Through Oct. 15. Thunder River Theatre, 67 Promenade, Carbondale, 970-963-8200 or thunderrivertheatre.com
“Parlour Song” Poor Ned. He’s always losing things – like his birdbath. Lucky for him, his best friend, Dale, lives right next door. Then there’s Ned’s loving wife … if only she seemed slightly less sinister. In British playwright Jez Butterworth’s hands, one man’s mid-life crisis quickly becomes a fight for survival that’s fraught with humor, paranoia and the discomforts of home. Directed by Suzanne Favette, “Parlour Song” features Paragon Theatre co-founders Warren Sherrill and Michael Stricker, and ensemble member Emily Paton Davies. Through Oct. 29. 1387 S. Santa Fe Drive, 303-300-2210 or paragon’s home page
“Slow Dance with a Hot Pickup” Boulder’s Dinner Theatre debuts this world-premiere musical by John Pielmeier (“Agnes of God”) about a marathon contest of surreal proportions — whoever holds on to a shiny new pick-up truck longest, wins it. Through Nov. 5. 5501 Arapahoe Ave., 303-449-6000 or bouldersdinnertheatre.com
“Steel Magnolias” Robert Harding’s enduring comedy about six Southern women who harangue and laugh together through the best and worst of times. Through Oct. 9. Presented by the Parker Arts Council at the Parker Mainstreet Center, 19650 E. Main St., 303-840-5406 or parkerartscouncil.org
“The Vampire of Cripple Creek” The Thin Air Theatre Company’s original Halloween mystery about an eerie stranger who moves into the abandoned Collins Hotel. Through Oct. 30. At the Butte Theatre, 139 E. Bennett Ave., Cripple Creek, 719-235-8944 or butteoperahouse.com
“Wait Until Dark” Frederick Knott’s classic 1966 thriller about a blind woman who stands in the way of three dangerous con men and a fortune hidden inside a child’s doll. Through Nov. 5. Presented by the Spotlight Theatre Company at the John Hand Theatre, 7653 E. First Place, 720-880-8727 or thisisspotlight.org
Complete theater listings
Go to our complete list of every currently running production in Colorado, including summaries, run dates, addresses, phones and links to every company’s home page. Or check out our listings by company or by opening date
The Running Lines blog
Catch up on John Moore’s roundup of the latest theater news: denverpost.com/runninglines
