Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, Book Review Example

Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project wrote and performed “The Laramie Project” to the accolades of many theatergoers. The project was written about the real life experience of the theatre troupe’s journey into Laramie, Wyoming in order to interview friends, family, witnesses of Matthew Shepard’s life and tragic death. The play was written over the course of 18 months in which the troupe traveled back and forth to Laramie in order to get over 200 interviews as well as to source information from letters of correspondence, journal entries, and police and court reports.

The play does a fine job about documenting who Matthew (Matt) Shepard was and although this is the focal point of the play the entire town of Laramie seems to be a character in and of itself as the events, opinions, and people of the town come forward with their side of the story, or their view about Matt. Although Matt is the focal point, it’s the aftermath of the play that drives it forward, makes it cohesive, and creates a backbone for a well told story. The play hinges upon the what-will-happen-next scenario. As the entire town states that they’re a “live and let live” place, their actions and opinions speak otherwise.

It is this complexity of character, this contradiction of nature that makes the play so readable and inspiring. The reader/audience member gets to fully invest in the characters of the play even though they’re not all of the same opinion. The car mechanic doesn’t care that Matt was gay and even says so, but he also points out that even though there isn’t a gay bar in Wyoming, there are a lot of homosexuals in the state. There is this undercurrent of accepted normal standards of living; the, if I don’t tell you I’m gay then you won’t beat the crap out of me mentality is well documented as the story unfolds. The story is also about the town, how they’ve responded to two hometown boys being capable of such a travesty. The town, essentially, doesn’t want to be a noun, like how they referred to Waco or to Jasper-towns that are defined by their tragedy. The play relates how the town gets together as a community after the tragedy.

Part of that community is the characters, the real-life people, Kaufman and company interviewed such as Officer Reggie Fluty (who, after the incident of cutting Matt’s wristbands off, was exposed to the HIV virus). Fluty’s character really drives home how badly beaten Matt was. She talks about the blood, and how, afterwards, she saw a picture of Matt and said that she would never have recognized him. It’s Kaufman’s inclusion of the details of the event that truly drive the tragedy home to the audience. This is done by dialogue; Fluty says that there was blood everywhere on Matt, everywhere but his face where he had been crying. This allows the audience to see Matt as a human being, someone capable of emotions instead of an element of a story where something bad happened. In fact, that’s what this play does; it makes Matt human.

After the news coverage on the tragedy it was difficult to see Matt as human because he was a spokesperson or an icon for a movement for better laws in place to protect gays and lesbians. Kaufman and the troupe did a great job in making sure that Matt stayed human throughout the interviews and the story. Not only was Matt made human but the other characters of the town were made human as well; this was seen with the evangelical priest who wishes that Matt had time to think about his lifestyle before he died. This showcasing of bigotry and religion really drove home the fact that this guy was a representation of a community; that the boys Russell and McKinney who killed Matt were acting out opinions long held not just by the community, but by pillars of the community. Thus, the play was speaking toward how the town cultivated a culture not based on live and let live, but based on hate, closed-mindedness and bigotry. This is shown in the interviews Kaufman and company conducted. They crew didn’t lead the interviews so much as allow the person to speak their mind in a free way. Thus, their voices were heard through the play and what was heard was a double-standard. The schools and churches may have been preaching love and understanding in Laramie but they were teaching it in a twisted way: the guy who found Matt said he was taught by his religion to hate the sin not the sinner, and a father said that the schools teach children tolerance but that it’s not okay to be gay. This issue was made impactful because it applied both ways; when Russell was sentenced his Mormon Church excommunicated him because of his actions. It seems that the play’s subtext involves lack of forgiveness on all fronts.

Kaufman and troupe approached this type of subtext very well. They didn’t narrow their focus just on Matt’s family and friends but interviewed ranchers who didn’t agree with being gay but also thought that no one should have to die like Matt died. That their hate was inactive. Many members of the community however, when chosen for jury duty, said that they would have no problem putting Russell to death. It seems that the entire community had a lack of forgiveness and caring. What’s great about how Kaufman frames the play is that he includes Matt’s father’s speech during trial; how he and his wife and his son all agreed in the death penalty but now was the time for mercy and to show the world what forgiveness was truly about. It’s what Kaufman and troupe chose to leave in the play that made the play so moving of a piece.

The way in which Kaufman and troupe juxtapose the interviews throughout the play was really well done. They kept an even measure of interviewing friends of Matt for backstory, witnesses to the case such as the bartender (then getting the bartender’s opinion), interviewing town people or ranchers who live in Laramie but didn’t know Matt in order to get a cultural sense of where Matt lived, and interviewing gay people in the community in order to get a perspective of what it was like for Matt to live and grow up in a town like that. The astounding thing about the play was how many people came forward to be interviewed either on Matt’s side or to get their opinion about gays in Laramie on the record. Despite whichever side their opinion rested Kaufman and troupe kept an even-keel about where the story’s focal point truly rested: on Matt. But Matt and Laramie are almost intertwined by the time the play ends so that Matt becomes the embodiment of the town: its hate, its complexities, its community. That’s why the play is such a good play; it’s that focus on how Matt and how Russell and McKinney could grow up in the same town and be so very different. They were the embodiment of the town as well. The note that really struck a chord was how the priest said the killers would be the best teachers (Russell and McKinney) because they could tell people how the community went wrong so that such a tragedy wouldn’t have to happen again.