IT is difficult to watch Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project without shuddering at the thought that George W Bush was swept back into power so recently on an anti-gay ticket that galvanized the religious right in America’s redneck states.
It would be so nice to come out of director Phil Clark’s beautifully crafted take on the show that sees its first Cardiff performance in the capable hands of students from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama at the Sherman Theatre.
The Laramie Project takes the form of a group of actors telling the story of the murder of Mathew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay student at the University of Wyoming, based on interviews carried out by Moises Kaufman with more than 200 people in Laramie and edited into this 90 minute play.
Much of the production’s appeal and success is the fact that we are presented with 10 fresh faced, young actors, all probably not much older than Mathew Shepard or his killers Russell A. Henderson, 21, and Aaron J. McKinney, 22.
Shepard, we are told, was discovered by another young lad out on a cycle ride on the High Plains. He had been tied to a fence post, beaten with the butt of a .357-caliber Magnum, tortured, robbed and left for dead.
Shepard suffered irreparable brain damage from the crushing of his skull and was comatose when he entered the hospital and also had hypothermia from being left out in subfreezing temperatures all night.
We never meet Shepard. The story starts with the arrival of the researchers in Laramie in the wake of a media frenzy that had made the townsfolk understandably reticent to talk.
But as with so many reactions to hate crime slowly as they opened up not only do we get to know the characters in the context of this one event but also their underlying hopes and concerns, fears and bigotry that lie just below the surface.
The trick of the Laramie Project is to say, yes, this happened in a seemingly quiet, easy going Wyoming town and the residents cannot understand how such a thing could happen in such a town – and transposing that thought to any town, any hate crime issue, and community.
Our cast of four women and six men swap between narrators introducing the townspeople to those people, traveling through – we are told – 79 different characters including a range of religious leaders with their own take on homosexuality.
James Sutton was particularly effective as the charismatic ranting Fred Phelps (then totally contrasted with playing Mathew’s father waving the death penalty in a tear-jerking courtroom scene). Andrew Mills makes for a dark catholic priest and colourful police sergeant – again totally opposite roles cleverly presented.
Ben Hynes hit the spot with his portrayal of the owner of the Fireside Lounge, where Shepard met his killers, while Hugh Darbyshire relishes his odd fame of believing he was the last person to see Shepard in the bar. In contrast Robert Vernon brought a perfect outsider edge to his limo driver.
These are contrasted with the other side of the Laramie social divide, the educated people of the University; the lesbian academic, the college principal etc.
Some of the most moving moments come from Richard Shackley as the doctor from Poudre Valley Hospital were Shepard died, never recovering from a coma and the student actor whose parents refuse to watch him play a gay role.
Similarly poignant are the observations from the feisty Marge Murray played by Ria Jerman and her police officer daughter Reggie, played by Lisa Diveney, whose concerns turn from Shepard to her own fears of having been exposed to his HIV positive blood. It is up to a young Muslim student, played by Rebecca Adamson, who voices the basic tenet of the play – that it did happen in a town where no-one believes such a thing could happen.
There is also humour to highlight the tension and the giggling scene between Ria Jerman and Jane Murphy works brilliantly in this regard as they goad each other into revealing more.
At first the vast range of accents seems odd but perhaps this is an intentional device to add universality to the tale.
The set is of course dominated by the chain fence where Shepard was murdered; dead flowers hang from the ceiling and are strewn at the base of the fence. In this ensemble piece where the actors are at times as much audience as players (conducting interviews) effective use is made of the balconies and walkways in the Sherman Venue 2. You are at times sitting alongside the individual players as they too are listening to the horrific tales and unspeakable bigotry, the understandable human fears and protective self-deceptions.
Paula Gardiner brings a five-piece jazz band into the piece, with improvised accompaniment music, which at times works as an atmospheric backdrop, at other times jars us into a nervous tension and at other times just makes it hard to hear the characters.
And so life goes on. The killers are jailed. The media disappears. The interviews are turned into a play and the play is performed. Has anything changed? Probably not. Will there be another Mathew Shepard? There already have been plenty from publicized murders in London to untold horrors in other parts of the world.
Laramie is possibly not the same. But then again.
The Laramie Project runs until Saturday, February 5.
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