CHICAGO TRIBUNE
ON THE FRINGE: NEW REVIEWS OF CHICAGO'S DIVERSE THEATER SCENE
By Kerry Reid Special to the Tribune
March 3, 2006
The Laramie Project
The movie "Brokeback Mountain" also inevitably came to mind while watching Janus Theatre's revival of "The Laramie Project," given the Wyoming setting and the gay-bashing death of Matthew Shepard that inspired Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project's portrait of the anguished college town. (One character even talks about the macho cowboy brand of homosexuality.)
But there are also echoes of "Capote" in the story of these New York-based writers who spent months interviewing Laramie residents about the effects on their lives of the crime and the punishment of its perpetrator.This show has been seen in numerous community and campus productions (and in an HBO movie) since its 2000 premiere.
The documentary narrative and emphasis on ensemble acting help this production. The greenness of some of the performers here doesn't interfere with the material -- in fact, the hesitancy feels honest and in the moment, of a piece with the difficulty of the stories being told. Director Sean Hargadon stitches together some lovely moments, and it's hard to keep a lump in the throat at bay when several of the townspeople don angel wings to block out the hateful invective of Fred Phelps. "Do your best to say it correct," a Catholic priest in Laramie urged Kaufman and his co-creators. Hargadon and his company, despite their lack of polish, manage to do just that.
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