The Laramie Project: Docudrama Form and Collective Guilt

Overview of The Laramie Project

The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman dramatizes the beating and death of a young gay man named Matthew Shepard, a university student in Laramie, Wyoming. The play was created to educate audiences about hate crimes and to honor Shepard's memory. As such, it disdains conventional dramatic conventions such as a linear plot and instead takes a quasi-documentary approach. Kaufman did not write the play by sitting at a desk with pen and paper; instead, he conducted interviews with members of the Laramie community who were involved in or affected by the incident, and he drew on actual news reports. The transcribed nature of the play is evident in the way many characters speak — with "ums" and "ahs," as people do in real life. Although this method means audiences do not get to know any single character particularly well, it creates a sense of the multiplicity of interpretations that arose in Laramie and in the mass media following Shepard's death.

Documentary Method and Dramatic Form

The play has a distinctly postmodern format. Different actors embody a variety of characters, so the audience never associates a single actor with a single person. Most of the people of Laramie insist they are not homophobic, despite evidence to the contrary. The play offers flashes of insight and goodness alongside horrific evidence of the crime. Using different characters' voices creates a more ambiguous portrait of the town: one moment an actor portrays a homophobic character; the next, that same actor portrays someone who is pro-gay rights. This technique is closely associated with what scholars of verbatim theatre describe as the use of real testimony to challenge audiences to form their own moral judgments.

Minimalist Staging and Multiple Voices

The play is spare and minimalist in design, with characters speaking directly to the audience rather than interacting extensively with one another. The characters' self-deceptions, conflicts, and stabs of guilt — or lack thereof — are the focus, rather than their interpersonal dynamics. Even in the dramatic scene in which Matthew is found, the characters do not actually act out the discovery of his bloody body. Instead, Aaron Kreifels, the person who found Shepard — and who believes God intended him to make that discovery — and Officer Reggie Fluty simply recount what they saw. Fluty's testimony is relatively cool and factual, while Kreifels' is emotional and visceral.

Just as suddenly, the play shifts to the emergency room where Matthew, still alive at the time, was taken. The doctor on call takes over the narration, signaling where the play has moved in terms of location and focus. The alternating voices create the drama of the scene rather than any visual display. While some might argue this approach limits the audience's ability to fully appreciate the violence done to Shepard, it also invites reflection on the range of reactions to the crime and the different ways people perceive and process it.

Conclusion

It is true that the friends and family of Matthew might not regard the play as a sufficient memorial to their son, in terms of his individuality. But The Laramie Project does spur reflection on how certain groups within society can become victimized, and on how people often blind themselves to the depth of their own prejudices. Kaufman's documentary approach, minimalist staging, and postmodern use of multiple voices combine to create a work that is less a tribute to one person than an examination of an entire community's moral reckoning — a reckoning that remains relevant to ongoing debates about hate crime and social responsibility.

Work Cited

Kaufman, Moises. The Laramie Project. Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 2001.