Matthew Shepard was about two months short of his twenty-second birth when he was robbed, beaten, tied to a fence post and left to die in a rural area of Wyoming. The man who found him at first thought he was a scarecrow. Rushed to Poudre Valley Hospital at Fort Collins, he died on 12 October 1998--and when Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney were arrested for the crime they resorted to a defense known as "gay panic." Matthew Shepherd had propositioned them, they said, and they were so horrified that they killed him in response.
The gay community and numerous civil rights watchdog groups were outraged by the defense, and as more and more facts came to light it seemed that the crime was somewhat more complicated than Henderson and McKinney wanted the public to know. Witnesses stated that Henderson and McKinney had specifically targeted Shepherd because he was gay. After much legal wrangling, Henderson pled guilty and testified against McKinney, who was convicted; after still more legal wrangling, and at the request of Shepherd's parents, McKinney escaped the death penalty but has no chance of parole.
The case made headlines from end of the United States to the other and prompted numerous calls for Hate Crimes legislation, which had long been stalled both at the state and federal level. And in the midst of the confusion, chaos, and controversy, Moises Kaufman and the members of The Tectonic Theatre Project arrived on the scene, interviewing more than two hundred people about their thoughts and feelings on the case. These were shaped into THE LARAMIE PROJECT, a drama that debuted in 2000 and which has since shocked, impressed, and deeply moved audiences from coast to coast.
On the stage, THE LARAMIE PROJECT is played by eight performers who enact the numerous interview subjects in a three act, three hour performance on a largely bare stage. When filmed by HBO in 2002, it was reduced in length by about half and each interview subject was performed by a different actor--some of them members of the Techtonic Theatre Project, some of them well-known actors such as Laura Linney and Peter Fonda. The result is indeed powerful... but not as effective as the stage version, for on film it tends be a series of readings by "talking heads," a sort of pseudo-documentary, rather than as a cohesive whole.
That said, the great difference between the film and the original script is one of balance. On stage, THE LARAMIE PROJECT takes no sides per se; it simply sets forth the words and allows the audience to judge. On screen, it is distinctly slanted, cutting much of the commentary that gave the original such remarkable balance. Even so, and although far outstripped by the stage version, it is a powerful voice for equality, tolerance, and simple human decency. Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
The gay community and numerous civil rights watchdog groups were outraged by the defense, and as more and more facts came to light it seemed that the crime was somewhat more complicated than Henderson and McKinney wanted the public to know. Witnesses stated that Henderson and McKinney had specifically targeted Shepherd because he was gay. After much legal wrangling, Henderson pled guilty and testified against McKinney, who was convicted; after still more legal wrangling, and at the request of Shepherd's parents, McKinney escaped the death penalty but has no chance of parole.
The case made headlines from end of the United States to the other and prompted numerous calls for Hate Crimes legislation, which had long been stalled both at the state and federal level. And in the midst of the confusion, chaos, and controversy, Moises Kaufman and the members of The Tectonic Theatre Project arrived on the scene, interviewing more than two hundred people about their thoughts and feelings on the case. These were shaped into THE LARAMIE PROJECT, a drama that debuted in 2000 and which has since shocked, impressed, and deeply moved audiences from coast to coast.
On the stage, THE LARAMIE PROJECT is played by eight performers who enact the numerous interview subjects in a three act, three hour performance on a largely bare stage. When filmed by HBO in 2002, it was reduced in length by about half and each interview subject was performed by a different actor--some of them members of the Techtonic Theatre Project, some of them well-known actors such as Laura Linney and Peter Fonda. The result is indeed powerful... but not as effective as the stage version, for on film it tends be a series of readings by "talking heads," a sort of pseudo-documentary, rather than as a cohesive whole.
That said, the great difference between the film and the original script is one of balance. On stage, THE LARAMIE PROJECT takes no sides per se; it simply sets forth the words and allows the audience to judge. On screen, it is distinctly slanted, cutting much of the commentary that gave the original such remarkable balance. Even so, and although far outstripped by the stage version, it is a powerful voice for equality, tolerance, and simple human decency. Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer