Laramie Project Review

Ann Arbor Civic Theatre presents an excellent "The Laramie Project"

Friday, May 7, 2010
BY JENN MCKEE AnnArbor.com

Near the end of “The Laramie Project,” now being staged by Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, a character bemoans the fact that no hate crime or anti-discrimination legislation passed in Wyoming following Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder. “What’s come out of it?" He asks. "What’s come out of this that’s concrete or lasting?”

His frustration is understandable, of course; but I can provide an answer to his seemingly rhetorical question: one thing that came of it is an innovative, gripping play that presents a more nuanced portrait of an American town at the end of the 20th century than just about anything else out there. And the play will endure.

Pieced together from more than 200 interviews (gathered by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project) with Laramie residents over the course of two years, “The Laramie Project” manages to cast a broad net, so as to not just solely focus on the events that led to two young men beating Shepard, a gay college student, and tying him to a fence, where he was left for dead for 18 hours. No, the play also includes thoughtful discussion about the class/education strata in Laramie; the death penalty; religious belief and homosexuality; the double-edged role the media plays in small-town tragedies; the beauty that can spring from tragedy in surprising ways; and how one act of brutal violence can come to define a town and its residents.

Director Kat Walsh and her talented, 14-member ensemble, who play more than 60 roles, do truly terrific work with “Laramie,” putting their own stamp on the show by way of impressively fluid transitions; atmospheric vocal music; distinctive movement; and a highly fleshed out sense of context in several scenes. Indeed, “Laramie” represents the best overall "straight play" production I’ve seen from A2CT to date.

The play moves swiftly and easily, despite a nearly 3-hour run time, and it’s wholly absorbing throughout. (I found myself leaning forward in my seat quite often.) While keeping track of who’s who can become difficult, since the actors are each playing so many characters, props designer Andrew Seiler and costume advisor Susie Burneis provide simple visual cues — a hat, a scarf, a red sweater — as prescribed by the script, and the audience quickly adjusts to this shorthand.

Regarding direction, Walsh’s only missteps involve a couple of scenes in which the tone is too emphatically overwrought (Laramie’s residents may get emotional while remembering painful experiences, but probably not to the point of screaming and sobbing at the interviewers); and problematic moments when one character speaks over that of another. In scenes like the arraignment and Shepard’s funeral, I strained (unsuccessfully) to hear the narrative voice, because the other speaker didn’t drop his/her voice to a low enough level.

Yet these are minor qualms about an outstanding production that sets a high bar for community theater. The cast is uniformly strong, and although I’ve seen “Laramie” a number of times now, Walsh and her team somehow managed to make it feel bracingly new again.

And in some strange, serendipitous way, it’s fitting that I watched “Our Town” at Chelsea’s Purple Rose Theatre shortly before seeing this “Laramie." For in the same way that Thornton Wilder’s groundbreaking, bare-stage classic can be described as a snapshot of small-town life in America in the early 20th century, “Laramie” offers a similarly thoughtful, scaled-down portrait of an American town’s residents as they confront the very different challenges of that century’s end.

Note: Anti-gay protesters, as well as counterprotesters, have announced plans to be at Saturday's performance of the play.

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.