Sarah on theater

Seeing The Laramie Project was a powerful experience. The text of the play is assembled from interviews with and statements by the residents of Laramie, WY in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard’s murder in 1998—when two men from the town kidnapped him, savagely beat & tortured him, and left him tied to a fence in a remote location—for no apparent reason other than his being gay. The townsfolk reflect on the extreme brutality of the crime, what it says about Laramie that it happened there, and whether their own attitudes towards gay people constitute complicity or culpability in the incident. Many of them tell on themselves by using the opportunity to talk about their own self-important opinions—is it morally right or wrong that the sky is blue? Even the ostensibly supportive ones pepper their language with code words like “alternative lifestyle.” Some go as far as outright blaming the victim.

I had heard Matthew’s story before, but I was four years old when it happened, so I’ve only ever known it through a certain lens of historical detachment. This 25th-anniversary reading, staged sparingly with eight performers on book, was transportive in a way that very few shows can be. I felt like I finally really deeply understood just how vile of an act this was—I’ve never been so viscerally angry in a theater before—and what seismic acts of grace some of the family’s reactions were. It made me consider how my own actions (or lack thereof) might similarly be complicit. Appalling that this happened in my lifetime (or at all), but good to see that we’ve made meaningful progress, even if there’s more to do.

The whole cast does a great job; the ensemble-forward nature of the piece makes it a bit hard to call out individuals as highlights, but Pooya Mohseni and John Gallagher Jr. nail the two key monologues. It’s a lovely nod to the history of gay theater to have a character auditioning for Angels in America—played here by Brandon Flynn, who is gay and born 1993, the year that show premiered on Broadway—sharing a stage with Kathleen Chalfant, a member of the original cast.

I hadn’t seen a play before that relied so heavily on verbatim words to tell a true story—a documentary on stage, if you want to call it that. I suppose parts of Good Night, Oscar were like this. Here, even more than there, it feels like a tool that’s used to handle a difficult subject with dignity, when invented words would fall short. The barebones way it’s presented might feel a little underbaked but for the seriousness of the subject matter; in this case, it feels like anything more elaborate would be gratuitous. It makes for a very heavy evening at the theater, but a rewarding one. Highly recommended.