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by Moisés Kaufman, directed by Joel Greenberg

Studio 180, Artword Theatre, Toronto

February 14-March 2, 2003

In 1998 in Laramie, Wyoming, openly gay university student Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, brutally beaten, tied to a fence in an isolated area and left to die in freezing weather.  Eighteen hours passed before he was found.  When he died five days later, his case had brought hate-crimes against gays to international attention.  A month later New York writer Moisés Kaufman took his theatre company to Laramie where in the course of two years they interviewed over 200 people.  The play based on these interviews opened in Denver in 2000 and only now receives its Toronto premiere.

Kaufman's strategy is to focus on Laramie itself and its response to Shepard's death and the trial of his two assailants.  It is a fascinating  portrait of a small town undergoing a crisis of conscience.  We meet more than 60 characters--friends, police, clergy, ordinary folk, the murderers themselves--covering all points of view from justification to horror.  Kaufman's excerpts from the interviews bring out the poetry in everyday speech and the contradictions in even the most well-meaning people. 

The downside is that we learn little about Shepard himself except that he is short, slight, gay and HIV positive.  Like the media he criticizes Kaufman is unfortunately more willing to view Shepard as a victim and a cause than as a person.  When the play portrays the process of making the play itself, it adopts a cloying air of earnest self-importance.

Joel Greenberg's direction makes imaginative use of a set consisting solely of five tables and a few chairs.  Of the eight actors, only Lesley Dowey, Deborah Drakeford and Kimwun Perehinec are fully adept at differentiating their numerous roles and delivering the low-key naturalistic performances the text demands.  Though his playing is otherwise too big, Jonathan Goad makes the second killer's confession truly chilling.

Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2003-02-20.

Photo: Alison Lawrence, Lesley Dowey, Deborah Drakeford, Mark McGrinder, Kimwun Perehinec and Dylan Roberts. ©2003 John Karastamatis..