New Theatre, Newtown, Sunday 19 October 2025
This is, undeniably, difficult theatre.
Difficult in its subject matter, difficult in its staging, and difficult in performance.
The Laramie Project is an example of verbatim theatre (aka documentary theatre in the US), where the content is based on verbatim accounts of an event or series of events by people who were witnesses or stakeholders of some kind.
In this case, the play written by Moisés Kaufman in 2000, concerns the 1998 murder of a gay university student in Laramie, Wyoming, and the reactions of locals to that and subsequent events, drawing as well on news reports and other documentation.
Unusually for verbatim theatre, it also covers how a theatre company travelled to Laramie to create a piece of theatre out of all of this, thereby becoming participants in the drama.
Clearly, this is very emotional, high stakes drama, that delves deep into prejudices held and perspectives on motivations and consequences that vary wildly.
As with all verbatim theatre, this is all about “tell” not “show”. Almost nothing actually happens, it’s just the recounting of interviews, conversations, and written reports.
That makes it hard to stage as visual theatre, potentially being just a series of talking heads.
With a cast of 10 actors covering more than 60 roles, it’s also hard to perform, each actor having to step in and out of many characters, with almost no physical action to help delineate their characterisations.
Despite all these difficulties, or perhaps at least partly because of them, this production of The Laramie Project is absolutely compelling theatre.
Director Mark G Nagle has worked overtime to use the stage in its entirety, his characters moving across and around the stage in various configurations, draping themselves on and around a minimal set design of constructed woodwork that serves only to frame the actors. Furniture moved into different configurations and clever lighting changes further help to denote changes of setting.
For the most part, the actors convincingly move from role to role, adding and changing small costume elements to help signify their change of characters as well as vocal variations. It’s here that the more experienced performers stand out, slipping comfortably from role to role without overdoing the “acting”, knowing that minor physical and verbal characterisations can be more effective than larger gestures.
Incorporating the accounts of the theatre company as they talk to the locals and each other adds an unusual dimension to the play, creating an extra perspective they share with the audience, kind of a casual Greek chorus that breaks the fourth wall, addressing us directly.
Above all, it’s the content of the play that compels. The events recounted are shocking in themselves, but its the reactions of the wide range of characters that create the drama. It draws on deep rooted fears and hatreds, despair and open-heartedness.
There’s no denying the tragedy of the original events, and the passion as everyone deals with the fallout, nor the sincerity of the people who seek answers, solace, and some sense of closure and progress.
This is powerful stuff, and it’s powerfully presented.
Production Images: © Chris Lundie
It sounds very compelling.