Theater Reviews

Mar 9, 2002 - Nevada Rep's "Laramie Project" is Thought Provoking Theater

By Jack Neal

Hats off to director James Bernardi and the Nevada Repertory Company for producing "The Laramie Project." The docudrama, based on 200 or so Laramie, Wyoming interviews following the 1998 gay-bashing murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, opened Friday night (3/8/2002) at the University of Nevada Reno's Redfield Studio Theatre.

The brutal murder and its aftermath focused national attention on homophobia and related hate crimes like no other incident in America's history.

Enter Moises Kaufman and his eight-member Tectonic Theater group out of New York who went to Wyoming and glued together a script out of interviews with willing Laramie locals, and presto, "The Laramie Project" as a crucifixion-theater piece was born.

The same team provided audiences "Gross Indecency," about the trials and tribulations of Oscar Wilde's court appearances and subsequent incarceration on sodomy charges. Clearly Kaufman and company are into exposing the unfair treatment of homosexuals in homophobic societies rather than exposing hatred and bigotry across the boards for the damage it does to everyone everywhere. But that is, I know, expecting too much from one group of creators, one play and does spread one evening of theater too thin.

The resulting "The Laramie Project," an admirable if limited investigation of human and subhuman behavior, is much more a journalistic documentary than a play of depth. Originally presented with eight actors playing over sixty impersonations of citizen interviewees, this Nevada Rep presentation uses 13 players to do the same thing. It's quite an emotional drain and technical reach for the young actors involved. To their credit they do it, if not brilliantly, close enough to brilliantly to give a beautifully balanced, all together splendid and often touching recreation to the harrowing many months following this American tragedy.

On a bare stage outfitted with a table and 13 chairs, the actors play a student defying his parents by performing in the gay anthem "Angels in America," a Muslim feminist, a police chief, a woman rancher, a university president, the cowboyish governor of Wyoming, a lesbian waitress, a lesbian faculty member, a sympathetic but uncomfortable Catholic priest, unsympathetic and uncomfortable clergy of other ilk, a variety of gay men, the young murderers themselves, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, and an array of Laramie folk just needing to get guilt off their chests, and, quite possibly, their faces on TV.

By the end of the evening, a rather fast moving three hours (until the final ten minutes when the presentation can't find an eloquent way to stop), audiences have gotten a fair sampling of Laramie residents. The problem is it's a sampling of people who can't really be told apart or their names remembered. "The Laramie Project" becomes more a blur of rememberances and a running sermon for gay rights and anti-hatred legislation, than a vehicle that reveals what made Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney tick like time bombs, or - for that matter - what Matthew Shepard himself was about.

This is not to malign the project or the people interviewed. Quite the contrary, virtually all of them testify to being "sickened" by the murder. "We don't grow children like that here," proclaims one, only to add, "but it's pretty clear we do grow children like that here." Laramie's attitude toward gay people says another is "live and let live, just so long (of course) as we don't know." One clergyman affirms that he doesn't condone that kind of violence, nor - he feels compelled to add - "that kind of lifestyle." Although this particular murder was motivated by hate of gays, one woman notes, "Matthew was neither a saint nor a martyr. If the victim had been a police officer," she questions, "would the media have shown the same interest?"

All well and good as extended conversations about a troubled world, but "The Laramie Project" never probes beneath the surface of what people say to to find out very much about what they feel and why. What kind of people could snuff out the life of a human being because he was perceived to come onto them in a bar? It's a question "The Laramie Project" may provoke viewers to contemplate, and maybe that's enough, but it's not a question the project explores beyond the superficial. "The Laramie Project" raises lots of issues. It provides few insights.

The production is, however, smoothly and poignantly directed by Jim Bernardi, wonderfully lighted by designer Larry Walters and stunningly acted by the following gallant and talented cast: Brian Barney, Jeff Bellows, Kristen Davis-Coelho, Michelle Freeman, Jenn Hagen, Cassie Joy Hill, Bradford Ka'ai'ai, Simon Marx, Gary Metzger, Tiffany Parkes, Charlie Porter, Kevin M. Sak and Kris Wallek.

"The Laramie Project" can be seen and experienced at the Redfield Studio Theatre on the University of Nevada Reno campus, 900 North Virginia Street, Reno, March 9, 13, 14, 15, and 16 (2002) at 7:30 p.m. and March 17 at 1:30 p.m. For information call 775-784-6847.