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THIS IS A STORY OF HOPE. HATE, FEAR AND COURAGE. THIS IS A TRUE STORY.

A novel ‘Project’

> Douglas theatre students talk ‘The Laramie Project’

Adam Tatelman
Arts Editor

 

n October 6, 1998, Matthew
Shepard—a student at the
University of Wyoming—was
found severely beaten and tied to
a fence, presumably victimized
for being homosexual. The
crime shocked the people of
Laramie, Wyoming, a city known
for its open gay community.
Following Shepard’s
death, playwright Moisés
Kaufman assembled the real life
testimonies of Laramie’s citizens
into a theatre script exploring
the social tensions inflamed
by the murder. According to
Kaufman, the play has a basic
structure, but the scenes can

Experimental theatre

be performed in potentially any
order, with each actor playing
multiple characters, each of
whom actually exists. According
to the cast, this has been a novel
experience compared to the
usual theatre methods, and one
full of interesting challenges.
“The play is written
beautifully,” said Alice Knechtel,
one of the student actors. “It
has a very distinct rising action,
climax, falling action—all those
traditional story elements. But
when you rehearse the play,
a lot of the time you rehearse
it out of sequence. Every
character has their own arc
that fits in the arc of the play.”
“Depending on the director’s
vison, it can happen in different
sequences,’ fellow actor Jace

> ‘The Laramie Project’ review

Adam Tatelman
Arts Editor

 

Fotos her work on several
previous Douglas College
Theatre Department projects,
director and teacher Deborah
Neville returns to direct Moisés
Kaufman’s The Laramie Project,
a play constructed from real life
testimonies gathered from the
residents of Laramie, Wyoming
in response to the killing of
Matthew Shepard, a local college
student who was the victim
of a hate killing at the hands
of two Laramie residents.
Obviously, prejudicial
violence is a sensitive topic. As
such, the play is a very sombre
affair, and one very grounded
in reality. The simple lighting

and the use of news footage,
police reports, and on-location
photographs via overhead
projections helps to establish
this realistic, historical tone.
Each of the actors (James
Byers, Nina Dosdall, Sean
Brown, Noah Achielkene, Alice
Knechtel, Jaimee Armstrong,
Logan Tower, and Chantelle
Pryznyk) delivers a series of
very natural performances.

Each actor plays several
characters, though none of them
qualify as leads. It was no doubt
challenging for the actors to so
rapidly switch between so many
different characters, and yet
every single one manages to be
vocally and physically distinct. It
could be said that Laramie itself
is the lead character, and the
townspeople are its quirks. Most

Byers agrees, “Many times I’ve
found there are scenes that
could come before or after other
scenes and still make sense. We
can highlight certain aspects

of what we want to say. In that
way, the piece is timeless.”

“It’s not just a story,” said
Logan Tower. “It’s a true event,
so the way it portrays that is
much clearer, more real.”

“We are often given a
little more artistic liberty with
creating characters,” said Nina
Dosdall when asked about her
experience in rehearsal, “but
with this particular play, because
we're playing real people, I feel
there’s more work required to
do them service—to make sure
that we are playing them to the
best of our ability, honestly,

are benign, and very few are
dangerous. Yet the perpetrators,
Aaron McKinney and Russell
Henderson, are portrayed
with a cautious empathy. It
would have been easy to paint
them as evil men, but their
testimonies convey a genuine
remorse and self-reflection.
The most difficult thing
for the average theatre-goer
to swallow presentation-
wise may be the play’s lack of
interaction between the actors.
This works on a theoretical
level—in a sense, the townsfolk
are being interviewed by the
audience, and their constant
separation represents the
fracturing of their community
in the wake of the killing.
However, the fact that most
of the performances are being

and understanding what their
experiences really were.”
“Everyone has a surreal
moment when they realize
can look up their character on
Facebook and find out there’s a
real Matt Galloway who lives in
Wyoming,” Sean Brown said. “It
adds amazing depth to the way
you can think about a character.
With most characters, you have
to decide a life for them.”
“These characters are not
actors. They’re real people, so
you find whatever research you
do within your body or in the text
to make it as real as possible,”
offered Noah Achielkene. “I try
to think of the mind behind
the person. If I’m reading a
text, there has to be more than
just that sentence. There are

delivered to thin air creates a
feeling of disconnect between
the audience and the actors.
In some instances, this
works in the play’s favour. One
of the few moments of contact
between the actors involves
a staged reenactment of the
beating, underscored by the
sound of a screeching train
wreck—it is likely this scene
would not have felt so brutal and
impactful if not for the lull that
came before it. Unfortunately,
the shock-and-awe card can
be played only once, and the
remainder of the play seems
less engaging by comparison.
In one of the interviews,
Shepard’s attending physician
described two abusive letters
she received in response to
her treating of Shepard. She

 

hidden messages in each line.”

“T like Zubaida Ula,” said
Jaime Armstrong when asked
if she had a favorite character.
“Matthew Shepherd faces the
struggles of being gay, and
she has the struggles of being
a different race in a one-race
community. She faces difficult
challenges that you can relate
to Matthew Shepherd—the
struggles against hate.”

The Laramie Project_
runs from March 18-24 in the
Laura C. Muir Performing Arts
Theatre at Douglas College’s
New Westminster Campus.
There will be a free preview on
March 17 at 2 p.m. For more
show times and tickets, visit
thelaramieprojectdouglas.
brownpapertickets.com

then went on to detail the
massive influx of supportive
and compassionate letters sent
to her by concerned people
from across the country. This,
it seems, is the message of The
Laramie Project in a nutshell.
Although atrocities do happen
and likely always will, we need
not let those extremist actions
define us as human beings as
long as we hold ourselves to
a higher moral standard.
Better to light a single candle
than to curse the darkness.
The Laramie Project_
runs from March 18-24 in the
Laura C. Muir Performing Arts
Theatre at Douglas College’s
New Westminster Campus.
For show times and tickets,
visit thelaramieprojectdouglas.
brownpapertickets.com