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An Examination of The Laramie Project Society is very intricate, complex and vulnerable mechanism. Usually, the relations in society are based on such unstable things as ideology, religion, and prejudices. Many humans virtue has changed a lot through the times. For example in ancient times and even in Middle Ages slavery was a common thing. Nowadays it is a crime because slavery is a deprivation of human freedom. And what about deprivation of life?
Yes, Im talking about murder. In Bible it is one of the most forbidden sins. But what if the murder tries to justify himself? What if he tells that victim deserve death? An intricate question as it is, so we may all rights to ask: What was a reason of a crime? It is not an abstract situation but a very real one.
Matthew Shepard, 21 -year-old student, was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming just because he was a gay. Would you be shocked of you hear that this tragedy happens not so long ago, in 1998? What is so awful in the fact of homosexuality? Why it evokes such cruelty?
Lets take a closer look on the historical aspect. Religious views of homosexuality have varied widely. Some religions view same-sex love and sexuality as sacred. That was true in the past of the Greek religion and other pre-Christian faiths, and continues to be true of many of the various native humanistic religions that have survived the spread of organized religion. (Religion and homosexuality) So, is a homosexuality really a sin? Roman Catholic Church, for example, had not condemned gay people throughout its history, but rather, at least until the twelfth century, had alternately evinced no special concern about homosexuality or actually celebrated love between men. " (Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality) Other religions, such as Buddhism do not believe same-gender sexual acts are inherently wrong. Buddhism in particular has no concept of sin.
And still, we can find many places in our history when homosexuality was severely punished. For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1: 2627) We can find many citations, which prove that: homosexual acts are unnatural, and are degrading passions; homosexuality is not governed by choice, hence being natural. Moreover, this passage condemns acting against one's nature. If people are naturally homosexual, then the objection does not apply.
It was an introduction from history. But now we live in the era of tolerance. The main of this new era is equal rights and freedoms for every person, regardless of its color of skin, language, religion and sexual orientation. And then again, why the play of Moises Kaufman The Laramie Project created such a furor?
First of all it was a departure for Moises Kaufman. The Laramie Project differs from his others works, but fits in with the rest of the playwright's body of work. Mr. Kaufman's last play, "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, " attempted to answer similar questions about similar issues in its own context, Victorian England, and did so with rousing success. The play "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde" was drawn from actual court documents, testimony and handwritten journals. That documents became the only source of words uttered on stage.
The play ran more than 600 performances in New York and in many other cities here and abroad. But the Laramie project brought him a true recognition. I want to add, that the time of writing was rather suitable time for such play. Homosexual movements started to speak aloud about their rights, about social prejudices, about groundless violence toward them.
Authorities preferred to conceal such misshapen ness as violence against the sexual minorities. The play of Moises Kaufman became a new, powerful voice against the violence and prejudice. "Laramie" is beautifully crafted, emotionally accessible, and generous. It proclaims its own communal decency and dignity, and discovers decency and dignity in most of the people whose lives it examines and in the social fabric of the western town that prosperity passed by. Kaufman says that he took the idea of witness and the aesthetic vocabulary of the Tectonic piece from a Brecht essay on his method for creating Epic Theatre. Who could have predicted that Brecht's ideas applied to an incident of deadly gay bashing would lead to a kind of patriotic love fest, a ritual of healing? (The Laramie project) So, lets shed a light on the play itself. As I had already mentioned, the play is about murder.
The composition itself is very unusual manner. A group of actors, in the aftermath of Shepard's 1998 death, visited Wyoming and interviewed the actual participants and other residents of Laramie. Moises Kaufman produced a collaborative script over a period of several months, which was based on more than 200 interviews. The script is composed entirely of the actual words of eyewitnesses: students, bartenders, school administrators, ranchers, ministers, activists, the murderers themselves and their families. The basic idea is to show the attitudes of those in the town during Matthews hospitalization once his body was discovered, after he passes away, during the trial and then even after that. (Laramie Project, The B-) The script and the play may seem abstract to an ordinary viewer but it was an innovation from Moises Kaufman. He allows the voices of the residents of Laramie to talk about the impact the murder of this young gay man had on them as individuals, and the city itself.
Lisa Presley states We hear the voices of the bar owner where Shepard was kidnapped, a rural farmer, a university professor, the young woman who discovered Shepard tied to a fence, the police woman who arrived first on the scene, the local parish priest, and up to 60 other residents sharing their words. (Laramie Project Workshop) The Laramie Project is not a reconstruction of the tragic events of October 6, 1998. It doesnt give detail prescription of the murder itself, when two young men - both Laramie residents - beat and killed Shepard, offended by his homosexuality. It doesnt show the trial of Aaron McKinney, who was convicted of first-degree murder. (Shepard's other assailant, Russell Henderson, entered a guilty plea) "When Matthew was beaten, it was a watershed moment, " Mr. Kaufman said in a recent interview. "At these certain watershed moments, '' he went on, "ideas float around in our culture, and an event like this becomes a lightning rod as the ideas come together, parallel subjects like gay issues, community issues, violence, class. All in all, this play cannot be compared to TV shows or films based on the real events. There is no dirty details, big scandals and great fights just a pure emotions and the fact of the senseless violence.
The play focuses on the aftermath, how the crime and the trial and the media attention affected Laramie - the third-largest city in "the Equality State. "As we do with most of our projects, we asked ourselves, can the theater play a part in the national dialogue of current events? Media does that differently with radio, television and newspapers. We want to know if there is room for the theater to add to that, said Mr. Kaufman. And the room for theater certainly was. But there were also some conflicts in the process of staging the play.
Director Bryan Jackson told the students that, because of the sensitive nature of the play he wanted the student actors to read the play to their parents and to ask parents to help with reading. Few days later one of the parents called a vice-principal at LC and objected the plays profanity. Director Bryan Jackson was informed that play would be cancelled. The objections were based on the profanity of language. In other words, the authorities wanted to close the project.
They also tried to mask their action as the concern about sexual minorities. It was a situation similar to the one about banned books at public schools. And as it always happens censorship backfires drawing more attention to the purportedly offensive material than would otherwise have been the case. The closing of the project evoke rather electrifying debates among students and faculty about vulgar language and controversial issues.
Director Bryan Jackson said We need to be open to this kind of stuff, because then we can teach that kind of discretion. We have a thing here called Coffeehouse, " he continues, "where [students] can perform anything, uncensored. It's after school. And they do and say some things that would make you squirm. But over time, they evolve out of that need to shock. They " re kids; they " re just testing the waters.
Once they learn that their audience accepts real quality material, then they start to learn what they can do and what they can't do and what they should do. " And I agree with him, maybe, if someone staged such plays in Laramie there will be no murder at all. People fears what they do not understand and the aim of the Laramie project is to tell a true story. "'The Laramie Project' actually explores the effect our presence had on the town and that the town had on us, " Mr. Kaufman said. "It underlines the importance of the observer and constantly reminds the audience that what they are hearing and seeing is an aesthetic experience created by a group of people who are trying to tell a story and paint a portrait of what we saw and heard. " How was all this is reflected in the production? Very simple, as everything ingenious it is very simple. Try to imagine the picture, which I describe and you will understand the beauty and the power of the play. The Laramie itself is represented by a stage floor, which is painted like a highway.
It is decorated with sizable screens with slide projections and a couple of TV monitors to add local color. The screens will show the pictures of Laramie while play's words are sorting them out and making sense of them. After all that talks and media frenzy over the torture and murder of Matthew Shepard it is rather good idea to visualize everything. That impressive accomplishment will help to feel the atmosphere of the Laramie.
The image of the log fence where Matthew Shepard was tied and beaten and left to die, bleak against a brown and wintry field dominates over the others and drags the attention of the viewers. It is a reminder of that awful crime; we must remember that Matthew Shepard is still the central figure of the play. His invisible presence only outlines the immensity of play. Eight people stand behind plain wooden straight-backed chairs. They are excellent actors because they not only represent the sixty different people but they also participated in research.
The actors themselves visited Laramie for six times and interviewed the witnesses. It was also unusual probably unique, Mr. Kaufman said that a theater company would spend so much time in one place researching, a commitment that made the actors themselves virtual residents of Laramie and, as a result, part of the story. Unlike hit-and-run television and many print reporters, they had the time to win trust and, in the end, become part of the story they tell. (A Death in Laramie, Reimagined as Drama) There were just a few dialogs between the actors. One idea that creators played around with in this process was the power of silence. The other idea was the directors use stage position and lighting to vary the effect of monologue following monologue.
Light followed the actors from monologue to monologue, when the intimate and confessional atmosphere was needed it narrows down, when actors start dialogues it widened to take in groups. The light created a lively active surface lay over a dark and solemn ground. The naturalness with which the actors move back and forth between their roles as visiting journalists and the multiple characters in this human collage give The Laramie Project its dramatic muscle. The script yields few memorable lines and the company's determined sensitivity to the fact that these people are still living with this story makes for a somewhat homogenized overall image of a modern day Grover's' Corners (The Laramie Project) The emotional climax of the play is the Dennis Shepard's monologue. It is the last scene in the play and it is beautifully outlined with the music (Randy Newman's Road to Perdition Score). On a first sight it may seems that Dennis Shepard is a hateful man.
However, the monologue is about forgiveness. It is the most emotional part of the play, and that is why there is no place for silence in it. On contrary, music gives the sense of forgiveness. Both piano and violin represents forgiveness, hatred and the self-serving aspect. They are tightly twisted with the text itself and synchronize every shift in mood.
The production is very faithful to the original context and I think that there is the best way of staging for this play. In Laramie Project each word is invaluable. The play was sorted out form more than 200 interviews and there is nothing unnecessary in it. As a site for the murder, Laramie seemed no more unlikely than anywhere else, a quiet, nondescript working-class town of 27, 000 people, most of whom are white, heterosexual and unaccustomed to national attention, particularly if it suggests that just for sharing the same ZIP code as the killers, they might also be perceived as homophobic. (A Death in Laramie, Reimagined as Drama) And I understand and feel some pity for the citizens of the Laramie town. But I think that they were too blind, too inveterate in their own beliefs, in their own little community. I have nothing against small towns but Laramie clearly shows how it fares.
Could the town ever return to its docile anonymity, or would it forever carry a murderous stigma as a place of intolerance, where a gay man was killed for being gay? Who could really know? As Laramie tried to move on, most of the cameras left. (A Death in Laramie, Reimagined as Drama) I sincerely hope the Laramie will change to better and that will be no more tragedies on its fields. Bibliography Michael Janovsky, A Death in Laramie, Reimagined as Drama, February 27, 2000. < web > Christopher Arnott, The Laramie Project, January 30, 2003. < web > Lisa Presley, Laramie Project Workshop, Unitarian Universalist Association, 2002. < web > Kage Alan, Laramie Project, The B-, < web > Harvey, John F. , O. S. F.
S. (1996). The Truth about Homosexuality: The Cry of the Faithful, introduction by Benedict J. Groeschel, C. F. R... Ignatius Press (web).
That which is unnatural: Homosexuality in Society, the Church, and Scripture web Religion and homosexuality, < web > James Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality
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