We are all word-borrowers.

It’s why I’ve had conversations with men – more than once – that involved pretty much nothing but Caddyshack jokes.  It’s why I was recently asked which movies I could quote all the way through.  It’s why everybody understands what’s going on when you make somebody “an offer he can’t refuse.” It’s also why we often struggle with words in new situations or after significant events.

How’d you know what to say when your best friend got engaged?  When you found out she was uh-oh pregnant?  What about when your Mom’s Mom died?

We don’t typically make it up on the spot.  Chances are, you mostly borrow, pattern, and patch together your conversations out of other things you’ve seen and heard in similar situations.  You are what you eat.  Although the human storytelling impulse goes back ages, it’s fairly easy to imagine a time when you would have been forced to draw only on personal experience.

But a primary function of the dramatic arts is to gift us with borrowable words.  Homer provided the Odyssey, which allowed us to compare events in our own lives to events in a hero’s journey.  Teenagers toss out Romeo and Juliet to express and understand new feelings like “parting is such sweet sorrow.” And anybody with the skills to read this blog has probably already heard or used “Candy Mountain, Charlie…  We’re going to Candy Mountain” in a conversation.

Unprecedented events can leave us speechless.  I remember watching Tom Hanks reunited with Helen Hunt, his wife in Cast Away, after spending years alone on a tiny island and – although I can’t remember whether they said it in the movie or I said it out loud at the time – saying that those kind of moments simply have no script.  We’ve all had that thought: what do I say here?

Who had any idea what to say in the days and weeks following 9/11 – until someone told us it was okay to be in heavy boots?

Likewise, no one in Laramie, Wyoming – or the rest of the country – knew what to say about the murder of Matthew Shepard.  What do you say if you’re a resident of Laramie or Wyoming or America?  If you’re heterosexual or gay or lesbian?  If you’re a student or teacher – parent or child?  If you’re Catholic or Mormon or Protestant or Atheist?  If you’re Republican or Democrat?

There were no coherent words.  Even Rulon Stacey, the otherwise rational hospital spokesman who announced Shepard’s death – the first public attempt at searching for the right words – was moved to tears and “lost it” on national television.

That’s one reason The Laramie Project is important.  Following that event, there was a search for the right reaction, the right feelings, and the right things to say.  Along with a crush of media, a small group of East Coast dramatists travelled to Laramie to collect information and interviews about the area, the murder, and the aftermath while it was all still fresh and evolving.  Their play is a chronological, honest, and multifaceted retelling of that group’s experiences.  It’s an unusual piece, in that it transparently shows its work, and shows us the process of how we collectively find and create our responses to unprecedented situations.

For a play about a hate crime, this Magic City Actors Theatre production is highly engaging, entertaining, and not oppressively dark.  This whole cast is remarkably good: Beth Ashton, Jill Casey, Howard Green, Amy E. Johnson, Stephen Mangina, Franklin Slaton, B.J. Underwood, and Hannah Wilkerson.  I also credit the Directors: Michael Stephens and Tawny Stephens.  I highly recommend it.

My only complaint would be small and not particular to this show.  When a play ends, there’s a responsibility to signal to your audience – clearly and unmistakably – that it’s over.  We like your show.  We want to show you.  We are ready.  A curtain should snap shut or the lights should fall, quickly and completely, so that our energy and enthusiasm can be fully released as applause.  For every unclear moment we wonder, “Is it over?  Is there more?” that energy gets diverted.  Unless there’s a reason to blur the lines between the real and slumber’d worlds, end confidently; allow your performers and audience their fullest possible ovation.

Thanks to Hannah Wilkerson and Leah Faulkner for letting me see the show.