The Laramie Project Summary

The play The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman is based on a real life event, the murder of Matthew Shepard and its impact on the community of Laramie, Wyoming. It is derived from interviews, journals and other sources complied by the members of the Tectonic Theater Project. The play shows the people of an American town searching for answers after a horrible murder that has come to define them to the world. The play doesn’t judge the society or the position that we are in, but gives the audience an opportunity to raise questions about the breadth of responsibility, the impact of evasiveness, and the need for change as a whole. For the majority of the play, the audience are directly addressed by the characters, voicing and expressing every

He recounts the day when he took a reporter there, the beauty of the place and how popular the place was for bikers and joggers. In reaction to this, one reporter asked “Who in the hell would want to run out here?” (Kaufman 23) Here the audience get to hear through Hing how this reporter was “missing the point” and how the reporters were failing to see the beauty of the land “they were just-nothing but the story.” There reporters were living in a different world and their job was to cover the story with eyes focused on nothing but the brutal murder of Matthew. For Hing, Matthew’s murder might be a simple question in regards to why did it gain such nationwide attention. At this point, the audience would ask the same question as to why would Matthew’s death hold relevance than many of other murders that had taken place the same year. What made the crime become so apparent that it had caused such a turmoil in the media? Kaufman used these contrasting visions to pull the audience into the play. More the audience invest, the more emotionally involved and able to think about the issue associated with this crime. Giving such contrasting vision also helps the audience to reflect where they stand in their point of view in a

The response from both make audience realize, the crime was not simply one family’s tragedy, it symbolizes our vulnerable and uncertain place in the world. We are responsible for the society we are in. We as a society, are responsible for what is happening and standing up and fighting for making place for people who are different as well. Society is responsible for the way we respond to such incidents. Throughout the play, audiences are engaged to serve as unofficial judge and jury in their subliminal through considering the soundness of each interview and testimony. As members of a society, one can find meaning in a world from which meaning is being gradually and steadily stripped away. However, it will never be possible to determine how much influence the national outcry about Matthew’s murder had on the remarkable evolution in American attitudes toward bringing changes. As this compassionate but always clear eyed production makes implicitly clear, it was without question a watershed moment, which is not to confirm audience in what they already believe in but also uncover our own positions regarding social