Pounce Online

Issue date: 11/9/07 Section: Arts and Entertainment

Brittni Garcia talks with one of the actors of "The Laramie Project," which was held at the Tarble Arts Center last week.

Hate is around us all the time. It can kill, it can hurt. When I heard actors were going to act out The Laramie Project, I became very interested. I was fortunate enough to see eight actors play the roles of people involved with The Laramie Project hosted in the Tarble Arts Center Atrium.

I've never seen anything like it. This would be the first play that I've seen eight actors portray the lives of 60 people. The Laramie Project is a play based on the hate crime that led to the death of Matthew Shepard.

The 21-year-old student of the University of Wyoming was killed in a vicious hate crime. He was a homosexual man who was very comfortable in his own skin. On the night of Oct. 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left tied up to a fence located on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyo.

He was left there for 18 hours in pain and suffering from hyperthermia. This play portrays scripted moments that led up to and after his death rather than the actual play of his death.

On stage, eight empty chairs sat alone in a row with clothes hanging on the wall behind them. In complete silence the actors walked on stage from both sides of the audience, the lights were dimmed and the mood changed to solemn tone.

The simplicity of the stage was a good setting; however, during costume changes I seemed to be distracted. As one person was taking off a jacket and the spotlight was on another, I seemed to watch both of them.

The narrator had a very powerful voice that introduced the townspeople, acted by the eight actors. This play was edited by the 200-plus interviews conducted by the Tectonic Theatre company members' accounts and published news reports.

The actors delivered their lines in the dialect that made me feel I was actually listening to the police officer and the priest of the town. The actors talked to the audience as if the audience were the reporters.

At first, when the actors started to change into several different characters I was worried I would get lost. But that was not the case for this cast. The cast had such talent that they could change their roles within seconds.

Continued...

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