Resorts: Happening at the Hamptons

When the 11:01 a.m. train from Manhattan pulled into Southampton—still a semi-exclusive summer enclave on the eastern tip of Long Island—the scene that greeted the passengers was not to be believed. Rumbling and banging down the street came a wave of empty kerosene drums propelled by perfectly straight-faced adults; a horde of children were bouncing large weather balloons on their heads. In the midst of the turmoil were two homemade Hovercraft, a foot above the ground, one ridden by a curvaceous brunette billed as “Liquid Hips,” the other by a menacing figure in black plastic and World War I aviator’s helmet known as “The Neutron Kid.”

“I think they’ve flipped their lids,” said a bystander. The reaction from the train was stronger. “Beatniks,” snorted one grande dame as she pushed her way toward her chauffeur-driven limousine. “It’s certainly not Southampton,” sniffed another. What was happening was a Happening—a combination of artists’ ball, carnival, charade, and a Dadaesque version of the games some people play. The Neutron Kid, glowering through his full beard and dark glasses, was none other than Allan Kaprow, 38, the artist who seven years ago gave Happenings their name.

No Glue. For days the local newspapers had been full of the mock-solemn high jinks that Art Professor Kaprow, Sculptor Charles Frazier and CBS Producer Gordon Hyatt were concocting. The point, explained Kaprow, was to have a plan, but no rehearsal, no separation of audience and spectators. Just pick a theme, arrange the setting, and let things happen. For the Hamptons’ Happening, which was to go on for three days, the theme was “Gas,” in part because Kaprow & Co. intended to use a lot of helium for balloons.

Laughing gas was what it needed, decided most of the Southampton spectators. “This is a lot of nothing with no glue to hold it together,” growled one cop. “Not so,” Kaprow smiled benignly. “This game is dream work—the kind kids do.” But he did not waste time arguing the point with critics. CBS-TV was filming the Happening, and Kaprow had to bustle his motley throng off for the next event.

Film in the Struggle. Amagansett is an artists’ colony and used to anything; but even the lethargic sunbathers blinked open their eyes and squinted when a rock-‘n’-roll band moved onto the beach and began blasting away in the hot afternoon sun. Then, in quick succession, giant, helium-filled balloons took off skyward, a red smoke bomb exploded, and from a plane overhead four hired sky divers plummeted downward. The doings brought crowds running from all along the beach, but Kaprow was unhappy: “I was looking for more surprises, and everything came out very orderly.” It almost didn’t. Two of the parachutists missed the beach by a wide margin and landed in the ocean, and suddenly it was up to the kids to paddle their air mattresses out to make the rescue.

Meantime, Sculptor Frazier was using vacuum cleaners to inflate his 50-ft.-tall “soft skyscraper,” attended by scores of shoving children. “The fun is in the struggle,” exhorted Art Critic Harold Rosenberg as the plastic building listed flaccidly to and fro and finally stood erect. With that, Frazier let it topple over on the beach, where, with cries of “Kill it!”, the children ripped it to shreds in a scene right out of Lord of the Flies.

Tons of Danger. Sunday was a day of pure surrealist chaos. In Sag Harbor, a onetime whaling port, a fake whale was seen floating in the harbor; 15 pretty nurses lay down on three hospital beds set smack in the middle of the highway. But nothing matched the pandemonium on Montauk’s bluffs. There the Montauk Fire Department’s hoses and two foam makers were turned loose, sending gallons upon gallons of fire-fighting foam billowing down the cliffs. Joined by hardened surfers, who left their boards to join in the fun, Kaprow, like Moses, led his tribes of happy Happeners across the foamy sea.

“There was a kind of dignity, a kind of apprehension in their approach,” one spectator noted. “Yeh, sort of like a pilgrimage,” another added. But soon the whole beach crowd was jumping into the cascade of suds, which came up to their knees, thighs, armpits. One plump sculptress plunked herself down, let the foam flow over her. Explained a Happener: “I’m exposing the five senses to a completely irrational environment.” The suds were harmless, and they sent Kaprow into raptures. Said he: “It was like tons and tons of danger kissing you like a powder puff.”

Once the fun was discovered, no one could have enough. The next day the foam-making apparatus was driven over to the town dump near Springs, another artists’ outpost, where the suds spewed forth once again so that all the children could have a good wallow. “The silliest thing I ever saw,” exclaimed one horrified mother. But not all agreed. “A blast—out of sight. I wish it could happen every day,” said one teenager. It probably won’t. The tab for the three-day Happening, with the cost of filming, was nearly $30,000—a fairly inflationary sum to pay for such a gas.