Word: sheparded
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...uninitiated, Hamlet, perhaps William Shakespeare's best-known tragedy, contains enough murder, lust, spying and intrigue to become the most frequently adapted play in all of cinema. Here, Old Hamlet (Sam Shepard) has died and his brother Claudius (Kyle MacLachlan) has assumed the reins of power in more ways than one. Along with taking over his company, Claudius has married Old Hamlet's wife, Gertrude (Diane Venora), which understandably angers her son, Hamlet (Ethan Hawke). Torn between concerns for his mother and spurred by a visit from his father's ghost, our protagonist seeks to uncover the truth...
...month after the murder of Matthew Shepard, the gay college student beaten and tied to a fence outside Laramie, Wyo., in October 1998, the orgy of media coverage and national soul searching over this horrific hate crime was beginning to die down. But just then the beleaguered town of 27,000 got another influx of visitors. They were actors from New York City who had cast themselves in new roles--as reporters. With tape recorders in hand (and working in pairs at first, in case there was any trouble), they fanned out across the community to interview people affected...
That difference is what Moises Kaufman is exploring. The Venezuelan-born playwright and director used a similar technique in his last play, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, drawing dialogue primarily from historical writings and transcripts. In the Shepard case, he saw a "watershed" contemporary event and enlisted members of his Tectonic Theater Project to help develop a stage work from it. The actors found the townspeople bruised by the media yet surprisingly willing to talk. "What helped was that we were clearly not experts and were groping our way," says cast member Greg Pierotti. The interlopers...
...audience, describing the interviews they did and re-creating them at the same time. There are choice, often harrowing details: the bartender recalling that the two killers paid for their pitcher of beer entirely in dimes and quarters; a deputy sheriff noting that the only place on Shepard's face not caked with blood was where there had been tears; an antigay Baptist minister expressing regret for the crime along with hope that in his last moments Matthew "had time to reflect on his lifestyle." (Shepard is not a character.) All this is enhanced by the shrewdly minimal staging: snatches...
...years in the areas of workplace discrimination, hate crimes legislation and political activism. However, the march had a more somber side; it also commemorated individuals who have been victims of hate crimes. Two of the most poignant moments during the afternoon were the appearances of the parents of Matthew Shepard, a gay student killed in Wyoming, and nephew and sister of James Byrd Jr., an African-American who was murdered in Texas. They urged the marchers to speak out for the peaceful acceptance of diversity in America...