by Lisa J. Tabet
Daily Lobo
Amid controversy and praise, "The Laramie Project," a play about the murder of Matthew Shepard opens in Theatre X Thursday night.
The play, directed by Denise Schulz, has been performed at universities across the nation with vast success and is a somber depiction of a town torn by conflicting emotions and faced with a crime too terrible to believe.
The cast of 14 plays an ever-changing stream of characters to portray each person involved in the tragedy. Though this character switching was confusing at times, it was a good way to use the cast for a more effective performance.
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All the members of the cast were on stage at all times during the play and were cause for a profusion of moments on stage as scenes progressed and switched. Only six cast members' parts did not fluctuate as much as the others.
These six, Hope DeLaRue, Molly Gittleman, Lance Kelly and Will Klundt, Casey Mraz and Mia E Ulibarri, played the researchers for the Tectonic Theatre Project, which was creating a play about Laramie, Wyo., and the Shepard case. They also played roles of people not from Laramie. This distinction was helpful in telling who was who.
The remaining eight cast members, Tara Brinduse, Kate Costello, Matthew Edwards, Rafael Gallegos, Luke Higgins, Michaela Ann Koerner, Matthew Lerma and Jennifer Stephenson played various townspeople. From Shepard's father to the policewoman first at the scene of the crime to Aaron McKinney, one of the killers, each character was compelling.
While the entire play had an intense feel to it, there were times when the redundancy was apparent. At the beginning of the drama, there was much discussion of who Shepard was. He was talked about and described to the point of exhaustion.
Likewise, during the trial, some of the realness of the crime is lost due to too much dialogue regarding the facts. Perhaps these reasons made The Fence scene even more moving. In The Fence, the actual death of Matthew Shepard was discussed. The murder scene was described and the play gained a somber tone instantly, making the crime as real and grisly as possible.
As guitar music played softly in the background, a doctor who worked on Shepard and Shepard's attacker on the same night commented on the irony. He wondered if god feels the same way as he did that night.
"We're all his kids, bodies, souls," he said.
The topic of religion was a prevailing theme throughout "The Laramie Project." Though religious tones were dominant, the writer did an excellent job of presenting both sides of the argument against and for the gay lifestyle.
