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A crime scene revisited

South Puget Sound Community College presents the unpolished but affecting The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later

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It's a musty old theater saw that even catastrophic plays can be saved at the last minute.  As Shakespeare in Love shrugged, "It's a mystery."  Frankly, I'm not a fan of this belief.  I always wonder how good the show could have been if it were rehearsed properly all along.  So when I heard South Puget Sound Community College was having production issues a week before opening night of The Laramie Project:  Ten Years Later, I got worried.  It's an important script, and I wanted it to succeed.  Happily for all concerned, theater magic appears to have rescued what could have been a damn shame.

Let's not kid ourselves; some of these actors are greener than Kermit the Frog, and it's easy to ascertain who.  But director Don Welch made thoughtful choices in the production of absorbing material, so the results are unpolished but often affecting.

Here's the setup:  A dozen members of New York's Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming at the turn of the millennium to research the murder of Matthew Shepard in October 1998.  Shepard, openly gay, had been robbed, beaten into a coma, tied to a fence and left for dead.  His two killers attempted to justify their actions by claiming Shepard made a pass at them, somehow driving them into a violent panic.  Tectonic used interviews and court transcripts to craft an electric theater piece.  Ten years later, Tectonic revisited Laramie for a second round of interviews, among them Shepard's murderers themselves.  This new piece - it would trivialize it to call it a sequel - debuted 10 months ago, with 150 simultaneous productions around the world.

What's truly fascinating about Ten Years Later is how so many citizens of Laramie have, over the intervening decade, re-conceptualized the murder.  What was once universally accepted as a homophobic hate crime, as evidenced by the killers' own testimony, was reshaped into a meth-fueled holdup that slid off the rails - and ABC News is one of the parties responsible.

Of the actors in SPSCC's production, Ryan Holmberg is clearly the most experienced; indeed, he might be a touch loud for the space.  But the talent I noted in Plaza Suite serves him well here, providing range to create and perform multiple characters distinctly.  Jeanine Kuehn demonstrates obvious presence and smarts, building on quality efforts in Durang Durang this spring.  I saw promising work from Karen Johnson and K.T. Cox among others; Cox's sweetly elfin drawing of Shepard may be seen as one enters the theater.

As I say, some of these performers are brand new to the craft, so the full catalogue of immature acting is on display, especially in Act I:  metronome impressions, line hesitations (including a narrator on book throughout) and stiff gesticulations à la Robot Vanna White.  But by far the most obnoxious element of this show was its soundtrack.  I'm a sucker for Lennon's "Imagine," but I'm pretty sure we needed it played fewer than EIGHT TIMES in the pre-show music alone to drive it home.  Once would have been more than plenty for "From a Distance," and "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes, which have been a cliché since The Wrath of Khan.  I'm not sure who to blame for these offenses, but the director, stage manager and sound designer all should've fixed them.

I wish I could've made out the small print in the projections that closed the show, but I caught the point of omitting the curtain call.  I've never seen an audience so befuddled - and I'm perverse enough to dig that.  Rest assured, actors, I'd have clapped if you let me, but I know you were focusing our recognition on those who paid for it most dearly.

The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later

through Aug 15, 8 p.m. Thursday- Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, $10-$15
Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts, 2011 Mottman Road SW, Olympia
360.754.7711

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