The Laramie Project Essay

As we know the audience is the heart of theatre. So as we see we, as the audience can relate to such thing as what happens in all movies or performances. Some films or plays try to make audience laugh, others try to make them cry but the producers of The Laramie Project brings a lesson to us.

The Laramie Project is a DocuDrama in which the film is a fictional drama based on true events.

The Laramie Project was created by Moises Kaufman. The characters are distillations of about 200 people whom the theater company interviewed over a one-year period in Laramie, Wyoming. This movie centers on the small town of Laramie’s reaction to a murder of a 22 year old young gay guy named Matthew Shepherd. Matthew Shepard's death was based on the so called “ hate crimes “ legislation.

When Matthew died he was not quite 22 years old.

He was a sedulous and smart young man. On the day of his death, he had met two young men in a local straight bar and got into their truck because apparently they had told him they were going to take him home. It seemed as if the two young men were going to kidnap him, but they acted as if they were gay just to trick him out of the bar. One of the men got very indignant when Matthew Shepard supposedly grabbed his thigh. He then suffered from what he later called a “ gay panic “ attack. He then started punching Matthew as he was sitting next to him. He then pulled over and dragged Matthew out of the truck and tied his body to a fence and started beating him up. He then later on died that cold October

night.
The play focuses on the townspeople - how they confront and seek to vanquish their own prejudices and fears. We certainly get a glimpse of the hatred - in the words of the Reverend Fred Phelps, who showed up at Matthew's funeral with his fundamentalist Christian cohorts, praising a God who "hates fags," and who had now condemned Matthew to an eternity in hell. It cannot be denied that this kind of rhetoric creates a culture of intolerance, and that the killing of a young gay man is only the material expression of a deeply spiritual disease.
"The Laramie Project" tells this story in a way that might appear as a journalistic derivative, since it is derived from actual interviews and court testimony. But the talented actors project a core of human values that recognizes our uniqueness even as it embraces our common humanity. Ironically, we never see Matthew in this play - not on stage or in video clips. And yet, sitting in the audience, I could not help but feel his presence. This moving drama does much to put a human face on the victim, and on all those affected by his murder - including those who committed it. Lastly, its asking us to check our premises.