10 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE March 15, 2002

eveningsout

Two TV films tell very different Matthew Shepard stories

by Joe E. Jeffreys

and Anthony Glassman

Like Waco or Jasper, Laramie has become a place defined by an event. In October of 1998, gay college student Matthew Shepard was savagely beaten and murdered by two young men there.

His death was seized upon by the media and became a symbolic cultural event that suddenly focused large numbers of diverse people on an issue that had been of little importance to them. Much as Rock Hudson's death brought AIDS into the public spotlight, Shepard's death caused worldwide reconsideration of its lackadaisical attitude towards violence against gay people.

Now, two made-for-television films take different approaches in dealing with the life of Matthew Shepard, as well as his death and the aftermath of his murder.

The Laramie Project, which debuted on HBO on March 9, explores the media, cultural and emotional phenomenon of Shepard's death. Originally conceived, written, and staged by Moises Kaufman and his Tectonic Theatre Project, the powerful play has now been adapted and directed by Kaufman for television.

Kaufman calls events like Shepard's death "lightning rods" as they draw people to them and cause them to direct attention. A month after Shepard's death, Kaufman and his theatre company were drawn to Laramie and began to explore and examine the town and its residents as well as their own reactions to their experiences. They conducted over 200 interviews during the course of a year and distilled them into a three-act play.

A native of Venezuela, Kaufman and his

Kristen Thompson as one of the "angels" who shielded Shepard's funeral from Fred Phelps.

New York City company have been acclaimed in the past decade. One of their previous productions, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, also focused on a lightning rod event and likewise employed a strict docudrama structure.

A first-time film director, Kaufman notes, "One of the things we do when we make theatre is ask what is the thing that theatre can do that only theatre can do? How does theatre speak? When it came time to make the movie that question seemed very valuable. What's the thing that film can do to contribute to this dialogue? We can show the beauty of the

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landscape of Wyoming. We can show Laramie.'

A strength of the HBO version is its depiction of the beautiful place in which this horrible thing happened. Shot in Laramie and Denver last spring, the film uses many of the actual locations from the real-life events. The big sky country of Wyoming works in sharp counterpoint to the grisly story that unfolds beneath it.

Another major distinction between the stage version and the HBO adaptation is its casting. In the stage version, eight actors play about 60 roles with no real costume changes. The HBO version cast each role individually. Among the stars lending their talents to the production are Camryn Manheim, Janeane Garofalo, Peter Fonda, Christina Ricci, Dylan Baker, and Jeremy Davies.

This approach does become distracting within the work's documentary form and there are a few false performances. Particularly strong performances, however, are given by Steve Buscemi as a local cab driver who knew Shepard and by Laura Linney who delivers a chilling monologue about Shepard's "lifestyle."

"When we started casting the movie, it turned out because the play had already run in New York and Denver, a lot of people had already seen the play," said Kaufman. "Our producers at Good Machine and HBO started getting calls from different actors who wanted to be part of it. Everybody's who's in the film really wanted to do this. They wanted to be part of telling the story. So I think the spirit of how the play was constructed kind of permeated into the way the movie was constructed."

The HBO project was honored this year with the distinction of opening the Sundance Film Festival.

It is not the first or last TV treatment of the Matthew Shepard story. MTV produced a version told from the killer's point of view several years ago.

NBC airs its own made-for-TV movie The Matthew Shepard Story on March 16.

NBC's take on it adheres to a more traditional narrative approach: Judy and Dennis Shepard (Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston) reminisce about the life of their

Shane Meier as Matthew Shepard in the NBC film.

son Matthew (Shane Meier) while deciding what to say at the sentencing hearing of one of his killers.

Where The Laramie Project deals with the aftermath, The Matthew Shepard Story looks far more at the events that led to the murder, at the formative years in Matthew's life. Boarding school in Switzerland, a trip to Morocco, a sojourn in Denver, Meier captures the coming out of a young man quite deftly.

If there is any problem with this movie of the week, it is that it seems like a movie of the week. For most of the film, both Channing and Waterston seem to play their stock television characters; Waterston is the incredibly earnest man he plays on Law & Order, while Channing walks through the movie with a knowing smile on her face that more closely resembles a smirk.

That being said, and taking into account that a number of the actors are Canadian and bring their incongruous, albeit slight, accents with them, it is a worthwhile movie.

The acclaim, however, belongs with Laramie. Unlike NBC, which will re-run its movie possibly once during the summer, HBO will give audiences many a chance to catch The Laramie Project.

Is waiting for lower interest in your best interest?

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