Contemporary Culture

Laramie Project at PVCC
By Kyle A. Porter, November 09
Editor-in-chief

Photo courtesy of PVCC Theatre Program

The play challenges actors to step into character, slipping on a jacket or holding a tape-recorder, and then step into the background or move the few, spare props while remaining on stage throughout the performance.

Fences run for miles paralleling highways that occasionally ribbon the plains of Wyoming. They are weathered, rustic split-rails supported by crossed posts, the only man-made architecture in a vista of prairie grass and expansive sky; star-filled at night and clear and bright by day.

Matthew Shepherd saw the night turn to day lying in the grass tied to such a fence by the road outside Laramie. Beaten and robbed and left for dead, he survived 18 hours in the cold of October 1998 until a bicyclist found him. He remained in a coma in a hospital for five days while the media and the world shattered Laramie’s peace in reaction to what became known as a hate crime.

PVCC’s production of “The Laramie Project,” 10 years after its first production, is a haunting history lesson. Mark Stoddard, director and PVCC drama instructor, and his company of student and community actors bring the citizens of Laramie to life from the interviews conducted in 1998 and ’99 by Tectonic Theater Project, a New York City theater collaborative.

The 14 cast members each step in and out of multiple characters re-enacting the interviews with the people of Laramie and its University of Wyoming where Shepherd was a student. He had been in Laramie for just a year; while few knew him long or well, the interviews give Shepherd a focal presence in the play.

He made no secret of his homosexuality and was pursuing studies in human rights and politics but did not seem to offend most of the citizens with his lifestyle. Many residents of the town and its leaders are defensive of their personal character; rejecting the implications of bigotry and homophobia from the press and outside commentary.

The interviewers are often uncomfortable probing their subjects, anticipating judgment of their own sexual identities from the clergy and townspeople. The process unfolds with dignity; the interviews offer a glimpse into the families and relationships in Laramie and in the year-and-a-half of interviewing, the students and actors bonded with some of their subjects.

Justice is served as the two young men, arrested the day Shepherd was found, natives of Laramie and known to many of the people interviewed, are sentenced to life in prison. One changes his plea before trial, throwing himself on the mercy of the court and receiving two consecutive life sentences.

The other is tried and convicted on three separate counts including first-degree murder. He faced a death sentence under Wyoming law, but the prosecution allowed Matthew Shepherd’s parents to make a statement at the sentencing. His father, Dennis Shepherd, poignantly described the pain of his and his wife’s loss and, while refusing to forgive his son’s murderer, asked for his life to be spared so that he could consider each day a gift from Matthew.

The play challenges actors to step into character, slipping on a jacket or holding a tape-recorder, and then step into the background or move the few, spare props while remaining on stage throughout the performance. They’ve memorized the words of real people and convey the impact of Shepherd’s murder on each person, without parody or caricature, even when the media spotlight clearly has gone to someone’s head.

The PVCC production skillfully conveys the full drama of the event, which simmers under the matter-of-fact expose’ of the interviews. There are no lead roles in this play; each performer has between three and seven different characters to portray. PVCC students include: Allison Bakken; Robert Lee Barnes, Jr.; James Hittner; and Steven M. Rowe.

Video of contemporary news accounts opens the play, projected on a large screen that is the backdrop of the stage. Throughout the play, still images of Laramie and surrounding sites fill the screen along with intermittent news footage of the incident and its aftermath.