Final addresses to “Hair” jury

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32873, 23 March 1972, Page 2

Final addresses to “Hair” jury

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, March 22.

After seeing the musical show, “Hair,” and listening to evidence from 13 witnesses, a Supreme Court jury is expected to give a verdict tomorrow on alleged indecency of the show’s opening night performance at Auckland.

The company staging the show, Harry M. Miller Attractions, Ltd, is charged with presenting an indecent show to which the public had access. It has pleaded not guilty.

The trial, which began on Monday, is before Mr Justice McMullin and a jury of 10 men and two women. Mr D. S. Morris appears for the Crown and Mr L. W, Brawn, Q.C., with Mr M. B. Williams, for the defendant company. At the conclusion of evidence today, counsel for the Crown and the defence addressed the jury. His Honour is expected to sum-up tomorrow. Crown case In his final address, Mr Morris said the jury had to ask themselves whether “Hair” was an indecent show. The defence to the charge was to prove that the public good was served by the alleged acts. The Crown contention was that the acts offended against right-thinking people. To become a criminal function, the show had to offend tn some serious way. The section of the law involved guarded against the corrosion of the proper beliefs of the people in the community“There must be standards, must there not?" said Mr Morris. “Some standards of morality, some standards of language and conversation, some standards of conduct for the well-being of society? “There must be standards of respect for the conventions of society, the kind of conduct of which society approves. Self-restraint “There must surely be instilled in all of us standards of self-restraint. “Restraints and moderation become all the more necessary in the education and upbringing and general well-be-ing of the youth of this country." - It was very easy for. young people to suggest to people like the jurors that they were in some way old-fashioned, said Mr Morris. "Don't put aside your standards when you consider this performance,” he said. “Don't look at this from a great height but look at it from the point of view of ordinary New Zealand citizens with your feet firmly on the ground.” The whole show did not need to be indecent If one part was indecent that was enough to condemn the showIt had never been suggested that the theatre could not attack accepted standards, but that did not allow people to put on a show with anything In it willy-nilly. A producer was not entitled to put on a show that was indecent and say it was a challenge to existing morality. Comparisons Mr Morris said he had not specified the nude scene as indecent. “You may think that the nude scene compared with other matters was innocuous. You may gain some help 'in deciding whether this show falls into the category of an indecent performance by comparing it with other parts of the show.” Defence ease In his final address, Mr Brown said it might have appeared to the jury that the prosecution evidence they had heard and the show they had seen had been two different things.

He said he sympathised with Detective Chief Inspector. E. G. Perry, who was sent to attend the show on six successive occasions. “What do you think his approach would be to this show, sitting grimly through it and going back to the station to write up his findings?” he asked.

Did the jury not think what he had said was a distillation of his own impressions, those of other officers, the script and his tape-re-corder? To support the police evidence were two witnesses. “They called Mr Booth who seemed to miss entirely the point of the show. Maybe he failed to see its messages and plea for love and peace,” said Mr Brown. He had appeared not to be able to recognise the scenes in the play, and this fitted into the soul-destroving police approach to it. The other witness had had to come 200 miles from Whangarei. Was this because nobody nearer to Auckland could be found who objected to it?

“Out of tune” If the nude scene was criminally indecent under the act, then the act was sadly out of tune with the times. Ten years ago the fourlettered word complained of

“Twenty years from now " it will probably have as ) much expletive force as ‘bloody* has now," he said. “It’s a word in common use s and fits truly into the con- '. text of the people acting in I. the play. Is it so dirty and t filthy? Is it criminally Indecent?” Context was vital, counsel e said. “Just as words must go r into context so must the so- . called indecent acts." said Mr Brown. “Can anyone now believe the scenes portraying sex were meant to be literal acts? r To some witnesses they were ’ just a satirical send-up on r the preoccupation today with • sex. : “Did these acts endanger : morality? Considering the - show, do you think they were criminal acts?" t “Not enough” Then had to be a tendj encv to deprave and corrupt morals for indecency to be proved under criminal law, said Mr Brown. To say it was dirty, filthy, lewd and ' crude was not enough. There was a failure to ! prove beyond reasonable , doubt that “Hair” was an in- , decent show. “Does ‘Hair* bring things ' out into the open in an edu- ; cathre way? The body of evidence must surely prove to ' you that this has been done." he said.. It was not just some sort of sex show; the Rev. F. R. Hamlin had found it moral and educative. Future standards “Your verdict will set the standards in this country. Convict ‘Hair* and your verdict will set New Zealand ' theatre back MX yean. Con- ■ vfet ‘Hair* mid. you an going 1 to draw down the shutters of sniftering and falsity. "If you acquit perhaps you 1 will, in the words of the song, 1 let toe sun shine in.” said Earlier, Harry Morris Mil- ■ ler said that his company first staged “Hair** in June, 1969, in Sydney. It ran for B 3 before about threeof a million people. ran in Melbourne for onths before about The director, Jim Sharman, : was regarded as one of the i top 10 theatre directors in the i world. His company consid- . ered it had a responsibility I to produce the best theatri- . cal works available. r ' Seen by 10.5 m “Hair” had played before i more than 10.5 m patrons I round the world in virtually . every country except the Iron Curtain countries. The play's principal theme was tolerance, love and understanding, and a total dis- ' gust at war, senseless killi mg and hypocrisy. There had been 32,000 ad-. ■ vance bookings from groups i in Auckland and these covi ered the total spectrum of > society. • Mr Miller said he repre- : sented the company as a con- : suitant to the Elizabethan > Theatre Trust of Australia, the Australian Opera and the State-run Melbourne Theatre Company. Cross-examined, he disr agreed with Mr Morris’s sug- • gestion that the message of ’ the play was put across just ' as well without the banners. I Obligation seen

As a producer he had a moral obligation to put over the play as the authors had written it It would be futile

to pull out one piece of the show out of context without relating it to the whole show. He was very proud of “Hair.” - The last defence witness, Professor Ronald Goldman, said he was dean of the school of education at La Trobe University in Austra-

lia. He held a degree in divinity and was a U.NJE.S.C.O. consultant for the study of the behaviour patterns of young people. “Hair” had a universal message of the dilemma of young people and their parents in living within the same society while values and assumptions were changing, he said. It accurately described what research indicated about the state of youth in the world.

Asked to comment on the j show’s moral and educational I merits and values, he said it . portrayed dilemma and did not provide solutions, except I in the kind of moral fervour presented in the second part. “Therapeutic” r In a sense it was therapeu- , tic. Anyone who went to see t the play saw mirrored there i> their personal family and , society’s dilemmas. : He used “therapeutic” in . the sense that it brought relief and released fantasies . which would otherwise ret main bottled up. , In that sense it was educative, which was why both his children had seen it. Asked if he thought “Hair” advocated drug-taking, he ' said, “quite the contrary.” It ■ showed drugs were a transi- ’ tory solution for some young ; people. i Professor Goldman said he did not think “Hair” was , ami-religious. It attacked , the hypocrisy of some reli- , gious people. The dominant theme was that of love, not i the perversion of love. The . portrayals of sex were caric- . atures and drew attention to i the fact that sex itself was not enough. Use of word Referring to a certain fourletter word, he said it was used very frequently by young people throughout the world and in its context an apt description and suitable for presentation. Recalled by the Crown, Detective Chief Inspector Perry \ said there were several dif- : ferences between the performance of opening night and that attended by the jury. Cross-examined, ; he said i that if he had seen “Hair” on the night the jury did and not on opening night, he ■ would still have recommend- , ed prosecution.

could not have been used in the courtroom.