The Laramie Project , written by Moises Kaufman and members of The Tectonic
Theatre Project, directed by Chris Baldock. Act-O-Matic 3000 at Chapel off
Chapel, Prahran, until March 30.
Ok, I'll out my own bigotry first: documentary theatre isn't my bag, baby.
I usually end up wondering why somebody didn't write a play .
The proper retort is, of course, that a documentary play is still a play, as
much an imaginatively-made artefact as any five act tragedy. But in less
than scrupulous hands, the knowledge that the story enacted before you
actually happened to real people can obscure this simple fact, in the worst
circumstances demeaning both theatre and the event it records. In the case
of The Laramie Project, which centres on a vicious homophobic murder, this
could be an especially difficult problem.
On October 7, 1998 a young gay man, Matthew Shepard, was discovered bound to
a fence in the hills outside Laramie, Wyoming. He had been savagely beaten
by two local men, and left to die. The crime became an international cause
célèbre , a symbol of shocking intolerance and hatred. The impact on the
tiny rural town of Laramie was profound, and it is this impact that the play
documents.
For the first ten minutes or so, as the actors earnestly outlined the
process of traveling to Laramie and setting up the interviews, I wondered if
someone wasn't making a terrible mistake. There's a certain piety in some
kinds of American soul searching that I find difficult to swallow. Even by
the end, when I was genuinely moved, I still wasn't quite convinced that as
a play The Laramie Project was wholly successful. But even given my
reservations, which are too complicated to elaborate here, I can't argue
with the quality of the work: this is powerful theatre, and beautifully
realised by Act-O-Matic 3000.
Read more at http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/
All the best
Alison
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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