"If you write a play of this, do it right, say it correct" is the charge given to Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project on their departure from Laramie, Wyoming after one-and-a-half-years of conducting interviews with the town's residents following the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard. -- The end result is The Laramie Project [2000] now on stage at the Cloverdale Playhouse. And the Playhouse "did it right"; they "said it correct".
Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, slight of build, seemingly well-liked; and he was targeted, severely beaten, pistol-whipped, tortured, tied to a fence, and left to die only because he was gay. His death challenges the denial expressed by many of the local citizens who insist that Laramie is a good and ordinary place, that "Hate is not a Laramie value", and their motto is "Live and let live"; anti-gay activist Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church led a demonstration at Shepard's funeral, but the impact of his death gave attention to hate-crime legislation, and continues to be felt around the world.
Marking the 25th Anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death on October 12, 1998, the Playhouse production, staggeringly co-directed by Clyde Hancock and Christopher Roquemore, and with another flexible set design by J. Scott Grinstead, features a brilliant 12-member acting ensemble who portray 60+ characters fluidly integrated into the story in a series of short scenes spread over three acts; the play's two-and-a-half-hour running time kept the opening night audience engrossed and stunned into silence so the time was hardly noticed.
Sean Golson, Layne Holley, Jacob Holmberg, John(na) Jackson, Scott Page, Evan Price, Tiara Staples, Hillary Taylor, Sam Thomas, Katherine Webster, Ada Withers, and Emily Wootten comprise the impressive ensemble of veteran and neophyte actors. -- Though the play is a documentary-styled "verbatim" script taken from interviews, court records, and newspaper accounts, these actors are not merely a set of "talking heads"; rather, they embody flesh-and-blood individuals, and change character with simple costume enhancements, and subtle vocal and physical changes. And they are excellent story-tellers.
The actors portray both sympathetic and un-sympathetic characters; parents and friends and strangers, as well as the perpetrators of the crime [Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson] and other antagonistic sorts are played with equal commitment; and much like Greek tragedy that doesn't show brutality and blood on stage, this script's vividly graphic descriptions of the details of Shepard's lacerations leave the audiences' imaginations to create the repulsive images.
There are too many important individual moments in this production to enumerate here, but two significant ones warrant notice and pave the way to healing. In the aftermath of her son's death, Shepard's mother Judy's words as reported by the hospital spokesperson [Evan Price] encourage everyone to "Go home, give your kids a hug, and don't let a day go by without telling them you love them"; and his father Dennis [Scott Page], in the play's single most devastatingly heart-rending section tells his son's murderer and the court, that instead of the death-penalty: "I give you life".
By doing it "right" and saying it "correct", let us all H.O.P.E that Matthew Shepard's death was not in vain, and that the world we live in, with so many legislative attempts to disenfranchise the LGBTQ+ community, will finally afford everyone the opportunity to be accepted as equals.
