"The Laramie Project"

The University of West Florida theater department provides an unforgettable and tear-jerking experience in its most recent stage production, “The Laramie Project,” directed by Sam Osheroff.
The concept of the play is derived from the more than 200 interviews conducted by the Tectonic Theater Project under the direction of playwright and founder Moises Kaufman. Five weeks after the brutal murder of gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.
The Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie, Wyo. to interview its townspeople about the hate crime that shook it to its core, and garnered it worldwide attention.
Easily, the most astonishing aspect of the play is that it is performed by only nine students who depict 60 distinct characters. On the open stage, the cast members brilliantly transform into their different characters. Not only does this require brilliant swiftness in alternating wardrobe such as hats and jackets, but it requires the skill of enunciated variation in voice and body movement.
Osheroff said that making each character unique and easily recognizable was one of his biggest challenges.
“ The play moves too quickly for costume changes so all the character work had to be defined by the actors' voice and body work,” he said. “The other tough job was ensuring that this was not just a series of talking heads, each monologue had to be real and alive, and feel like a snippet of actual conversation. I wanted the audience to feel like they were eavesdropping on each conversation, but maybe that they didn't catch the beginning.”

If it is any consolation to Osheroff, the performers pass the feat with flying colors. Scenes transition effortlessly and end powerfully. The pivotal, and most gripping of all the performances is in the final statement by Chris Frazier, who plays the role of Dennis Shepard, Matthew Shepard’s father, when he addresses the jury about his wish not see Aaron McKinney, one of his son’s murderer’s die, but to live in prison forever in the memory of Matthew.
Without a doubt, the rest of the cast certainly shine, as they reenact emotional moments from Matthew’s memorial service, to the intense trials of his two killers Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, both roles played by Kyle Golden.
In “The Laramie Project,” performers talk to the audience in a series of monologues instead of interacting with each other with dialogues, helping the audience feel more in touch with the storyline.
The lighting on the painting hanging behind the stage,by Kimb Willieamson dimmed and brightened, adjusting to the emotion carried in scene. The backdrop is a simplistic landscape reminiscent of the Wyoming countryside, or perhaps representing the secluded field where Matthew Shepard spent the last hours of his life. The set consists mostly of a stained wood platform.
At the close of the play, Dennis Shepard remarked that he could see the “sparkling” in the distance of Laramie, a city that has a natural beauty that his son so deeply admired. One could say the same about the compelling performances in “The Laramie Project.”
Osheroff said that, while he can’t determine what message the audience walks away from the play with, he hopes that it helps them form their own meaning of ideas and concepts.
“I hope that they catch things that I didn't even notice,” he said. “The idea that strikes me most is this: Inhuman actions are the result of inflexible thinking. When we see other people as ideas or concepts rather than humans, then we allow ourselves to treat each other as less than human.”


The next performance of “The Laramie Project” will be on April 20, from 8 to 10:30 p.m.
Location Information:
UWF Pensacola Campus - Center for Fine and Performing Arts
Phone: (850) 857-6057
Room: Mainstage Theatre
Ticket Prices are:
$16/Adults
$12/Seniors & Active Military
$10/Non-UWF Students & UWF Faculty/Staff
$5/Youth

"Ghost Crab" Book Review

I hope my feature story on author Paul Magnus Lefcourt, aka Pablo Lefkowitz, aroused some curiosity for his novel "Ghost Crab." If so, great news! I have finally finished the final draft of my book review for "Ghost Crab." It was a fun process, and my first time reviewing a novel.

Review

“Ghost Crab,” the debut novel by Pensacola author Pablo Lefkowitz, is more like a wacky, although scientific, autobiography of sorts than your usual fiction. Lefkowitz, a marine biologist who earned a Ph. D in environmental sciences from Rutgers University, said that his own personal experiences are the foundation of “Ghost Crab,” namely his near-death experience, a debilitating accident in 1987 on his boat that left him paralyzed from the neck down.

“Ghost Crab” opens in a state of utter confusion, with the narrator, Max Nordstein, waking up from what at first seems be a coma, to find himself in a new oceanic environment—and in a new ghost crab body. Max then learns from the deeply analytical Peaches, who is a woman’s spirit trapped inside a ghost crab, that he and his beautiful girlfriend Gretel were both killed by an explosion on his boat, the R/V Gaea, and that he has been reincarnated as a ghost crab.

After their encounter, they engage in a passionate mating scene, and Peaches becomes Max’s lover and only companion, acting as a psychotherapist, explaining to him the concept of reincarnation.

“Every human soul that has ever occupied a human form is now either in another human form or an animal like us,” Peaches explains to Max. “It is the way of Karma.”

Ever the logical scientist, Max is bewildered by this philosophy of reincarnation and renounces belief in the supernatural, mystics, witch doctors, or keepers of the occult, but Peaches tells him that he must keep an open mind—or else get lost. Once Max regains his memory, he embarks on an adventurous trip through a mental videodisc, which reveals the events of his life. These events include his birth in Norway to an American Jewish mother named Anna and Sven his Norwegian father, who is a chemistry professor and scientist, to his early, incestuous love affair with his cousin Aimee, his tedious graduate research studies at Rutgers University, and his experiences and relationships formed at High Thor, a rehabilitation center.

Lefkowitz’s writing style is unique but awkward to read because the story flows like a drawn-out interview, with Peaches, whose dialogue is in bold print, asking Max foreboding question after question as if they are in a never-ending, redundant therapy session.

Max’s life is a dizzying tale of a complex intellectual who goes through phases of self-destruction, self-renewal, and self- discovery. Not for the faint of heart, “Ghost Crab” contains graphic sexual descriptions and themes of incest between Max and both his sister and his cousin that can be uncomfortable to read.

Lefkowitz said in a recent interview that “Ghost Crab” is the product of invention and real-life happenings. He said he had no fear of inventing things such as making Max a genius, and his father, who is also Max’s son, one of the most famous scientists in the world.

Although the plot of “Ghost Crab” is captivating and exciting at some turns, it is a story that warrants interest in the life of the author himself, or in the theme of reincarnation, to which Lefkowitz takes an unusual approach.

“Read this book, and you’ll find out what a screwball I really am, but I’m very lovable,” Lefkowitz also said.

The first edition of “Ghost Crab,” published by Xlibris Corp. on September 22, 2000 is currently available only in hardcover on Amazon for $32.99.