In October 1998, Matthew Sheppard, a 21 years old American student at the University of Wyoming, was killed in Laramie which is often referred as the gem-city of the plains in the US. He was beaten brutally and found unconscious. He was tied to a ‘buck’ fence and died after surviving five days in coma. The media covered the news and the culprits were arrested. To know more about the tragic incident, Moises Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theatre Project traveled to Laramie, interviewed the residents and collected data for eighteen months. From more than 200 interviews and journals, they conceptualized a three act play called The Laramie Project which had the first public run in 2000 in New York, and HBO premiered a movie on the same later in 2002.
Under the skillful direction of Dr Deborah Mirola and Divya Dev, One World Theatre is staging the play featuring twenty two community members and professional actors in Kathmandu at Theatre Village till March 14.The theme of homophobia and hate crime, as represented in the play, is very much relevant in the contemporary Nepali context. More than the life story and the sexual orientation of the slain Shepherd, the play focuses on the larger issues concerning homophobia, class distinction, hate, religious imprecations, biasness, anger, confusion, and justifications. The striking issues of the play are two: the issue of hate crime and ‘watershed moments. Zackie Salmon, one of the characters in the play exclaims: “How can such things happen here? It is a pretty much “live and let live” city. Her exclamation makes one consider—how even the literate and gender-aware people cannot escape deeply rooted social prejudices arising out of homophobic hate crimes! If a sexually marginal individual faces rejection, discrimination and life threats in a “live and let live” society, what can one expect from sexist-socially-conservative societies? Not much.
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The Laramie Project does not focus on the actual incident of hate crime, as media coverage usually has us believe. It however, attempts to represent the ‘watershed moments’ where the residents’ experiences and reactions become more important than the crime incident. Trying to comprehend the post incident experience, the artists from Tectonic Theatre Project spent time with the locals, win their trust and narrate the aftereffects as experienced by the locals who mostly are ranchers and university population. Adapting those moments of local experience into theatrical journalism, the artists retell a true story of the watershed moments from the residents’ perspectives. The mixed emotions, differing experiences and perspectives of the locals reflect the impact of a hate crime, while also showing how different people react to homosexuality and hate crime in multiple ways. The provocative fusion of homophobia and objective reality in the play produces the salutary effect that poses difficult questions to the audience concerning the non-normative sexuality, social rejection, discrimination and stigma. Every community is composed of multiple layers of lived experience. As I watched the play I felt that those layers were being peeled off, one by one, revealing uncomfortable “truths” precipitating around the incident of hate crime which very much exist in the Nepali society as well.
Watching Divya Dev, Rajkumar Pudasaini, Kurchi Das Gupta, Utpal Jha, among others, acting on the stage is a real treat. Better use of sound and life effects would have added more life to the story and one or two characters could improve their pronunciation to match their expression. Despite such minor drawbacks, the play inspired some major questions in my mind which I am unable to answer at the moment: What does “live and let live” mean in the Nepali society? How do majority of us react to sexually marginal subjects in Kathmandu? Can a Nepali gay (or lesbian for that matter) proudly introduce his/her partner in the public in the contemporary post 2006 Nepal? How do sexually marginal subjects in Nepal deal with the forces of hate, prejudices, assault, stigma and discrimination not only in public but also within their family relations and interactions?
Overall, the play successfully raises the theme of “unnamed violence” against the sexual minorities that not many people think about or pay serious attention to. It also shows how a community undergoes uncomfortable self-analysis and introspection following such crime. While such violent incidents bring forth deep rooted prejudices of community members, they also allow the birth of new understandings concerning social values, including those relating to sexual practices and morals.
The author has PhD in English Literature with focus on gender archanathapa00@hotmail.com
