A Creative Mama’s Story

We had a fun rehearsal for The Laramie Project on Tuesday. We finsihed reading through Act III and then we went around the room and discussed characters. Each actor read a representative piece of dialogue from one of their characters and shared what impressions the dialogue gave them about who the character is and how they dress, walk, talk, feel, think, react, etc. It was fun because I love exploring that stuff.

Then it sort of turned into a discussion about how all of the characters in this play are real people. And the words the actors will be speaking onstage are all direct quotes from these real people. There is a wealth of information online about Laramie, WY and the Matthew Shepard case. Romaine Patterson who was a friend of Matthew’s became an activist because of her outspokenness reagarding the case and became famous for “standing toe to toe” with Fred Phelps. She has a great website for her new book, The Whole World was Watching. And her main website is called Eat Romaine.

I think this is the first time that I have ever been involved in a play in which the characters are 1) real people AND 2) still living. Yes, the irony of that last statement is a bit odd considering the whole thing deals with Matthew Shepard’s murder and he, of course, is not still living.

One of the actors brought up the HBO film. He wanted to know if it was okay for him to watch it. He was asking my opinion/permission. I have the DVD on loan from another actor in the play who has watched it - several times. And I have yet to put it in my DVD player to watch it myself. I just haven’t committed to it. Because I don’t know if I should or not. I need to do my homework and do my research, but does that include watching a movie based on the play, based on the actual events, based on …

I told him that was up to him. Of course, he can watch it if he wants to watch it. But, I stressed that I wanted him to portray his characters the way he, himself sees fit to portray them and not base his performance on what Steve Buscemi did. Because that would ruin his time onstage and the performance would not be authentically his. That’s what I think about watching the film myself. Some of my favorite actors and actresses are in that film. I have always wanted to watch it and have always intended to rent it until I was chosen to direct the play. Even the little snippets I have seen from previews and commercials have stuck in my brain and I find myself having to push them out of my head to think about what we can do with this script theatrically with the actors we have here and with the resources we have here. And film is a 100%different medium than theatre. It just is. There is absolutely no way to recreate a film onstage. You have to create a play onstage. Yeah, yeah, yeah - I’m not saying anything anyone else doesn’t know. I am trying to work my decision out in my head as I write this.

Should I watch it or should I not? There is no should or should not. I will not. I have decided I won’t. I will do other homework. I will read, re-read, and listen to the words in the script every day. I will research. I will look for photos and headlines and try to understand the nature and venom of a hate crime. I will take what I know about trauma and apply it to my director’s choices. And I will look at people and look at the actors onstage and do my best to help them BE who they are as they are BEING their characters. Decision made. To view or not to view? View not.