A film focusing on The University of Memphis' 1970 production of the play Hair was featured at the 7th Annual Indie Memphis Film Festival.The documentary, entitled When Hair Came to Memphis, was made during the production of the play. The filmmaker was Craig Leake, assistant professor of communication, who worked for News Channel 5 at the time.
Leake said he had the idea of doing a documentary surrounding the production when Keith Kennedy, then director of theater, told him he might get a permit to do the play.
"It had one great feature in that no one knew what the 3rd act would be," Leake said. "I read about the play being notorious for a nude scene, which Dr. Kennedy said he wasn't going to do, and it had some foul language. The show was designed to confront and outrage the audience. Here was someone putting this production on in "River City" so I thought we should follow it and see what the community reaction would be," Leake said.
"I approached my boss at News Channel 5 with these ideas in mind and he agreed that it would be interesting to follow to see what happens."The U of M was the first organization, besides the original New York companies, allowed to put on the production.
As far as the atmosphere in Memphis, Leake said it was a time when the community felt divided.
"This was still less than two years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King," he said.
"There was a strong feeling of values in the community, namely Christian, mixed with a racial divide. This along with the sanitation strikes made a stew filled with hard feelings. A lot of people were sensitive to outsiders coming in and trying to change values and the idea of a foreign play, this being from New York, produced in the their midst caused alarm. I remember in my own family my aunt was very concerned about the play being shown here."
Leake said although there were always threats to close the production of the play down, the city's primary attitude was to wait and see.
"Our focus on the documentary switched from community reaction to the strong group of people involved in the production trying to figure out the real meaning of the play," he said.
"Inside the theater, not the community, there was a better story about people working together to over come their prejudices and that's why I think there's still an interested audience for the documentary. I still hear stories about how it's been shown on a lot over the years in classes and churches."
Cast member Berneta Miles, an administrative secretary at The U of M, said the knowledge of a documentary being filmed about the production didn't bother the cast too much.
"The majority of the crew were theater majors," she said. "The documentary was a backside. Truly we were there to learn the parts the director wanted us to. It was like we knew the cameras were there but we didn't."
Miles said she liked how Leake focused on the cast member's story of making the production.
"Craig did a wonderful job in showing the view point of a group of young, talented, black and white individuals dealing with racial issues at that time" she said.
"He did a great job showing how we did that as a group. It was a strange time in the city and one cast member talked about how he dealt with white people in the theater. He thought he liked everybody in the theater and ended up loving everyone in the cast. We learned to work as a group and as a family and still stay in contact to this day."
The production itself still holds some U of M records, including the largest number of auditioners (over 200), the largest number of tickets sold in the shortest period of time (8,000 in 24 hours) and the largest amount of gross income obtained from any previous run of a single show ($23,000).
"The feedback of the documentary of overwhelmingly positive," Leake said. "There were a few negative calls to the station about featuring a dirty play but that was a very small minority. There were many calls asking permission for showing the film in their class or at their youth group. It captures the meaning of tolerance and just like Dr. King said to not judging someone by their appearance but by the content of their character."
Sophomore Paul Lynch, biology major, said he enjoys works that look at a small piece of history impacting a larger issue.
"Sometimes it's small events like a play that really tackle a problem and help bring forth change," he said. "It's definitely a big part of Memphis' history."
Miles said the production showed how different people could work together, be cohesive and function as a body of one.
"At the time there were real issues of blacks and whites on stage together," she said. "Young people these days don't have to deal with so much of that. Craig's film is a way to look back, reflect and get insight on where to go and what's ahead of you. Documentaries do that and are a great tool to show actually what goes on."
