Last Thursday night, friend and I went along to see the Wild Oats Productions performance of The Laramie Project as part of the 7^th International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival (IDGTF). The Laramie Project is a play documenting the murder of Matthew Shepard in October 1998. The play, written and produced by Moisés Kaufman and members of Tetonic Theatre Project, premiered in February 2000 and has since been produced worldwide.

The IDGTF programme contains the following blurb:

The story the world must not forget. In October 1998 Matthew Shepherd, a gay twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten and left to die, tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie. Moisés Kaufman and members of Tectonic Theatre Project made six trips to Laramie in the aftermath of the murder and conducted over 200 interviews with the people of the town. This breathtaking theatrical collage explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable. Unabridged.

There is actually nothing I can fault about the play. The 8 actors involved gave phenomenal performances, each playing several characters throughout the production. They moved seamlessly between their characters, using jackets to symbolise which person they were playing.

The Laramie Project is quite possibly the most moving and powerful play I have ever seen. There wasn’t a single dry eye in the theatre after the statement that Denis Shepard (Matthew’s father) read to the court was read out as part of the play.

This play is definitely a must see for all LGBT people.

The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival runs until the 15^th of May. For details on this week’s productions, download the festival programme here: http://www.gaytheatre.ie/downloads/IDGTF_Brochure_2010.pdf

For more information on IDGTF, go to www.gaytheatre.ie

Popularity: 1% [?]