Angstademic Discourse

[Hello all! As of today, the Jackrabbit will be spending most of her weekend furiously typing on her first round of PhD field exams in medieval literature. So while I'm collapsing into a nervous wreck over Boethius, Beowulf, The Pearl poet and/or Chaucer, please enjoy the melodious tones of this silent scream into the Bloggosphere...]

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 So, the good news is this: I found out last week that I am going to be talking about The Laramie Project at an interdisciplinary academic conference focusing on "memory and trauma" as their theme.  I'll present the paper in March as part of a panel on issues of narrative trauma, representation and recursive storytelling (this would take a lot of time to explain.)  Anyhow, my personal experience with The Laramie Project and questions regarding trauma and memory are going to be placed alongside narratives of natural disasters and displacement, civil war, and victims of seemingly motiveless violence.  And among all this, I'm supposed to come up with something theoretical and pithy about The Laramie Project that will make the collective cogs in the audience members' heads hum pleasantly, a good performance of academic gymnastics.  And at the moment, the prospect of this makes me think just one thing: Ugh.      

So, at first I was thrilled to finally talk about all this in an academic forum.  Then a couple days later I started to experience a little bit of doubt, and that doubt has turned into some outright panic about having to discuss this in person to academics.  I'm worried: is anything I'm doing here actually worthy of being considered academic?  Or, on the flip side, is anything I'm doing here actually worthy of being considered authentic writing?  What's going to happen if I pull whatever-the-hell-this-is into the academic sphere where it can be theorized to death? 

A bigger question might be this:  what the hell IS this thing I'm writing?  Can I even remotely call this a foray into an academic discussion? And, should I?

Blog link: Read Jonas Slonaker's Editorial, Interview, and More!

[Update: I think I have the link fixed now.  Sorry for the annoyance!]

The blog Ten Thousand by the Fourth of July is a blog o' potpourri: some poetry, personal reflections, reviews...  a little bit of everything.  It's run by Pennsylvania based blogger CA Conrad, who is also a cousin of Laramie resident Jonas Slonaker.  Conrad interviewed Slonaker after Tectonic interviewed him for The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later back in October 2008, and attached are a list of personal reminisces about life in Pennsylvania and the struggles of their family.  It's utterly fascinating, people.   

Okay, so you already know that I've always harbored a soft spot for Jonas Slonaker in the play, mostly because he's so honest and straightforward about how he sees the world, and he's resistant to happy endings.  This interview, and the personal information attached, only makes me like the guy a little bit more. There's info on everything from the HBO movie to the limo driver interviewed for the first play. 

And, there's one more thing you should know: the full text of that letter to the editor that the Boomerang refused to run is in the post, too (look near the bottom).  It's the only source I've found for it so far.  I didn't want to post it on my own site because that felt like cheating.  So, go!  Read! Look for yourself! 


http://tenbyfour.blogspot.com/

Fear, Loathing and "The Laramie Project": 10 Years Later, 1500 miles away

The October 12 performance was a watershed moment for me.  For one, it was the first time I had had a healthy interaction with a TLP performance, and it was only the second time I had actually dialogued back with the play-- two plays, now. 

The performance has given me a lot to think about, a lot to question, and especially a lot for introspection.  This blog entry is my first attempt to try and work through what the play experience was like from my observer's perspective.   

I hadn't really slept since the Friday night before the performance.   Adrenaline kept me moving through most of Sunday when I chatted with the cast, but by Monday I was absolutely dragging.  I was actually in the middle of an LGBTA meeting right before I left for the performance site and nervous as heck.  (Yes, I'm a straight, conservative evangelical who's actively involved in the LGBT community-- please, just... deal with it.)  This week, I was catching up with a friend I'll call "Lucas"  while everyone else chatting about the National Coming Out Day activities and were planning on seeing Milk that evening on campus.  "Lucas" and I whispered back and forth confidentially in the middle of the hubbub; he'd had an absolutely miserable weekend.  

"I've got to run to the play," I finally said when I couldn't wait any longer.  "I'll catch you later."  My friend gave me a funny look.
"You okay, hun?"  He asked.
"This play scares the hell out of me,"  I confessed.  Naturally, this confused him.  You see, I had never told anyone in that room except the club president my history before. 
"Why would it scare you?"   He asked.  So I came out with it to my friend "Lucas" right there. He was dumbfounded.  "Lucas" gave me a bear hug to comfort me before I left, and then I slipped out the back door.    

I Cannot BELIEVE What I'm Looking At...

Governor of Wyoming, originally uploaded by micdsphotos.

Okay, so I've spent a lot of time prowling Flickr over the last few weeks looking at theater shoots of TLP and TLP: 10 Years Later just to look at things like staging and whatnot. For the most part, I've been rather impressed at what I've seen, and it's ranged from full-scale professional productions to shoestring budget high school productions. And then I ran into this and just about gagged.  I now know how bad a bad production of The Laramie Project can actually get. 

The cultural travesty you're looking at above is from a St. Louis production of The Laramie Project in 2008 put on by the Mary Institute and St. Louis Day School (yes, I'm calling them out). You can view the entire set here if you like (and hilarity will ensue).   If I can believe the caption, that's supposed to be the former Governer of Wyoming, Jim Geringer, pictured above. What.  The.  Heck. 

First of all, what the hell is this guy wearing? Even the Brushpopper shirts that got really popular about fifteen years ago, which can be pretty darn loud, aren't usually this extreme.   I haven't seen anybody wear a shirt that ugly outside of a rodeo ring or southwestern Texas (I mean, the embroidery and cut do have a traditional Tejano flair to them, no?).  And then there's the snaps.  It's a freaking snap shirt.  Anymore, snap shirts are mostly for old people with sore fingers like my father or fratboy Kid Rock wannabes who like to pretend they're all cowboy in their beat-up straw hats and ostrich skin boots.  And then the hat....  it's got to be at least one full size too big for his head.  Besides, usually those enormous ten-gallon affairs only show up on Texans; if you wear a sail that big that on your head in the Wyoming wind, you're just asking to lose it.  And a bolo tie?  With a concho on it?  If you dress like that in Wyoming and you're under a certain age, it's usually because you're trying to play it up.  You know, at a rodeo or a livestock auction.  It's just not a part of the everyday wardrobe anymore. 

Second of all, where the hell did he dredge up those glasses? I mean, seriously? Highway patrolman reflective aviator's glasses? With that sneer on his face, he looks like Cartman off of South Park taking about people "disrespectin' his authoritah."  (Although I have to admit, I thought I saw a picture of Doc Connor wearing a pair of those once.)  It's like that scene in Back to the Future 3 where Doc dresses Marty up like a rhinestone cowboy in a fringed lamé shirt to go back in time and Doc reassures him with something like, "Of course this is accurate.  I based this outfit on painstaking research."  (Please tell me somebody else remembers that movie...)

Okay, so I know that this is a (big budget) high school production, so I shouldn't get too wrapped around the axle about this.  But there was an adult directing this thing, right?  You know, one that knows the difference between an insulting, culturally insensitive parody of Wyoming and an insulting, culturally insensitive parody of Texas?

Anyhow, I had better shut up. But just to add to the jocularity, here's a picture of the REAL former Governer of Wyoming, Jim Geringer, with no bolo, no sunglasses, and no cowboy hat.  No kidding:

Keynote Speaker, Geringer, originally uploaded by WyGISC. (via Flickr.)

This rant has been provided for your reading enjoyment by a very indignant Wyoming Jackrabbit.   Thankyouverymuch.  

Plan-B Theater Company Remembers TLP

The Laramie Project, originally uploaded by planbtheatreco.

Plan-B Theatre company is a Salt Lake City-based theatre troupe who, according to their website, "develops and produces unique and socially conscious theatre." Considering their social mission, then, it's no surprise that they were also the first independent company licensed to produce The Laramie Project after the Tectonic run was complete in late 2001.   The theatre company has a blog post looking back on their own personal recollections of the Shepard case and the staging of that monumental run of performances in 2001.  It's a pretty moving story-- especially when you read who showed up to watch their performance (and I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you who...)

In addition, they have a series of photos from the theater company on Flickr so you can see their body of work over the last decade or so-- and let me tell you, it's pretty impressive.  Their repertoire since 2000 has ranged through a wide range of thought-provoking drama about everything from GLBT issues (like this one) to race to terrorism. 

 There is a set of stills for The Laramie Project as well in the Flickr set, but I'm having trouble from the context of the pictures telling whether or not they're from this original run in 2001 (pictured left) or if they're from a later run, possibly in celebration of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later.  They weren't uploaded until a month ago and there are no descriptions, so I'm not going to venture a guess.  I will say, however, that it looks like it was brilliantly staged. 

In any case, I wanted to share with you their poster for the run, which is a fascinating piece of artwork from both a symbolic and an aesthetic point of view.  I love their view of the sky-- literally boiling in the turmoil of a prairie sunset, crashing down and yet opening an escape-- and the double image of both Shepard's binding and release.   The artist is playing around with some great imagery of social turmoil, freedom, and hope. 

But of course, the thing that most clearly catches my eye is that fence.  They didn't design the scene with a buck fence in it, and being a good Utah company in an area with lots of rural landscapes and wilderness, I have to wonder if that was on purpose because I simply can't imagine they wouldn't know what a buck fence looks like.   Perhaps it's not too strange to read their choice as a refusal to participate in the grisly symbolism that had, by the time of this run, built up around buck fence where Matt was beaten.  If so, that's an impulse I can completely understand and actually sort of appreciate.

In any case, you now have four links above to explore and play with.  If nothing else, check out that blog post!  It's fascinating for a lot of reasons-- especially with tidbits of things that were in the original TT run but then were edited out by the time the Vintage edition was released, nearly at the same time as this theater run.  Please, check them out!

Incredible panorama shot of a WBC protest/counter-protest

Westboro Baptist Church Counter Protest Clowns pt.1, originally uploaded by jesse.feinman.

I had used some pictures from a 2009 Albany high school performance of The Laramie Project in a previous post.  Apparently, Westboro Baptist Church had shown up to protest the performance, and a Flickr community member, Jesse Feinman, has posted an absolutely amazing panorama shot of the protest.  (That's him at left counter-protesting, which I absolutely love.)  If you want to see what love overwhelming hate looks like, then I'd recommend it.   The counter protest on the other side of the street in the full panorama shot is simply amazing.

Since Flickr has a size limit posted on pictures, the link below goes to a different web address where you can view the whole thing.  

My favorite signs:  "Jesus Forgives" (on left)   and "You eat your kids" (!) on the right.  Guess which one is which:  http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2209/11470066/20327503/357238914.jpg

The picture link above is watermarked (I did that intentionally), but go to his Flickr photostream (linked above) for contact information and link if you'd like a clean copy.  He says he's happy to answer requests.  

So please if you like, take a look, wash your hands, and then hug somebody who needs it.

Fear, Loathing, and "The Laramie Project": Narratives

After the 2006 production of TLP at my college campus, I continued to teach the play; but, but following that traumatic evening, my pedagogy changed.  For one, I adopted instead a much more autobiographical focus in my classroom.  Our department allows us to pick themes for our 101 and 102 English classes, so I picked autobiographical memory for mine.  Actually, "Memory and Atrocity" might have been a better name for my class; in addition to TLP we generally read Maus and study the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa (a "semester of depression," one student quipped).  I've taught Jane Taylor's Ubu and the Truth Commission alongside TLP before, which had unpredictable but interesting results.  (Comparing TLP with autobiographical theater in South Africa is a rich, rich field of study I'm trying to research-- but more of that later.)

In my course, we read TLP as a reservoir of a crafted, collected (as opposed to collective) memory of Matt's murder, and we talk about the strengths, pitfalls, and limitations of memory to capture a specific moment in time.  We read TLP to look at the collective understanding of Matt's murder, the whys and hows of how people remember, and why personal memory is such a powerful tool for social change.  This would ultimately be good training for me, psychologically speaking, because I would have to face this play one more time:  the October reading of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later.