By Whitney Sorensen
If you’re lucky enough to have a ticket to UVU’s sold-out run of The Laramie Project in Orem, brace yourself for an unsettling but vitally meaningful theatrical experience. Director Laurie Harrop-Purser skillfully combines a talented cast of 10 live performers with film footage shot for this production to tell the story of Matthew Shepard and the Laramie, Wyoming residents who witnessed the aftermath of his murder.
The Laramie Project, written by Moises Kaufman and his collaborators in the Tectonic Theater Project, is a unique play that defies traditional theatrical conventions. For one thing, the script includes the story of how the play came to exist: Kaufman led a group of theater artists to Laramie to conduct interviews with its citizens and collect a slice of the America that surrounded the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming.
For another, the play’s cast members switch in and out of multiple roles throughout the performance. This swapping forces the audience to examine how all the Laramie citizens relate to one another, even as they express widely differing perspectives on Shepard’s life, his death, religion in general, and LGBTQ rights.
Harrop-Purser builds on the inherent anti-tradition elements in the script with the overall production design for this staging of Laramie. As mentioned, the play incorporates some film, a technique UVU uses well and often in their stage productions. The filmed portions include the performance of Amanda Crabb as Marge Murray, a person I viewed as the embodiment of the best of Laramie. She’s a mother who works minimum wage jobs to provide for and protect her family and openly shares her story with Tectonic Theater Project, despite having no recorded direct interactions with Matthew Shepard.
Harrop-Purser has also staged this performance to be “promenade theatre.” The cast members invite the audience to move from their seats throughout the black box theatre at various points in the story, and audience interaction with the performers is encouraged at specific moments as well. These two elements make it impossible to watch the play passively, and even made me feel complicit in the events onstage. I found myself wondering multiple times, “In what ways are my actions contributing to violence to LGBTQ individuals in my communities?”
As the audience takes their trip through Laramie, the guide is a narrator played by Bailey King. He is dressed to resemble Matthew Shepard, but the playbill does not officially call him a representation of Shepard. Each time a new character comes onstage, King gives their name and perhaps a passing explanation of their relevance to the situation.
With so many voices and actors in this show, I’d like to highlight my favorite character from each.
- David Chamberlain as Matt Galoway, a Laramie bartender, brings some appropriate lightness to the play.
- Hallie Purser as Romaine Patterson, a friend of Matthew’s, returns often enough that she builds a rapport with the audience, which is necessary when her biggest contribution to Shepard’s legacy is revealed in the second act.
- Kim Abunuwara as Catherine Connelly, a professor at the University of Wyoming who is also a lesbian, shows the fear LGBTQ individuals experience when hate crimes like Matthew’s murder occur and made me walk a mile in that experience.
- Kira Knorr as an unnamed person who emails accusatory words to the university president—her speech presented the greatest challenge to me because as harsh as her words were, I couldn’t explain away the truth inside them.
- Kyle Baugh as Dennis Shepard, Matthew’s father, who gives a poignant statement toward the end of the play and every bit embodies a grieving and moral father.
- Matthew Herrick as Doug Laws, one of several Mormons in Laramie, stands strong when he shares a short statement about how his religion considers homosexuality unacceptable—and creates an important echo of the community around this production.
- Sage Peacock as Rebecca Hillaker, who heads the university’s theater department, takes action that wants to inspire both progress and healing.
- Tristin Smith as Father Roger Smidt, a Catholic priest in Laramie, has the most loving attitude toward the events of the openly religious characters, an attitude I know I need to live better in my own life.
- Whitney Call as Reggie Fluty, a police officer in Laramie, shows that an event like Shepard’s murder can have echoes and raise different emotions over time.
My one grievance with the performances is that the actors sometimes can’t shake the weight of the play’s social message enough to fully embody the attitude of the person being portrayed. For example, when minor community members share brief negative opinions of Shepard, the performers’ sympathy for Shepard is still subtly evident. For my part, I feel the play offers enough perspectives that a wider range of villainy could have been depicted, but it may have been a choice of the cast and crew to make the characters with less sympathetic attitudes feel more familiar.
UVU’s staging of The Laramie Project is many-layered, and one review cannot contain everything, but I do want to acknowledge dramaturg Matt Oviatt. Audience members receive a pamphlet prepared by him that helps them examine the big questions in the performance, most notable of which is how to apply the message in our own communities and families.
Be aware that the play does contain intense language, including homophobic slurs, and the production staff does a great job of making that clear. Because of this, I recommend the show only to mature high school students or adults.
If you aren’t lucky enough to have a ticket to this show, put it on your must-see list. In the meantime, please visit the Matthew Shepard Foundation online to learn about the legacy of inclusiveness and love that have come out of his death.
UVU Department of Theatrical Arts Presents The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theater Project
UVU, 800 West University Parkway, Orem, UT 84058
January 18-26, 2018, 7:30 PM; January 18, 2510:00
Tickets: $5-15
UVU School of the Arts Facebook Page
The Laramie Project at UVU Facebook Event
Whitney Sorensen, UVU, Laurie Harrop-Purser, Moises Kaufman, Tectonic Theater Project, Amanda Crabb, Bailey King, David Chamberlain, Hallie Purser, Kim Abunuwara, Kira Knorr, Kyle Baugh, Matthew Herrick, Sage Peacock, Tristin Smith, Whitney Call, Matt Oviatt, The Laramie Project
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