Laramie Project Was Started by the Fact

¶ … Laramie Project was started by the fact that Matthew Shephard, a 21-year-old gay university student of the town, was bashed and his body tied to a fence outside the town where he was left to die. 10 years later, 200 people of the town where interviewed over the course of 2 years by the Tectonic Theater Project regarding how they felt about the event. The result was the Laramie Project where eight different actors, under the guise of different roles, opinions, beliefs, and perspectives, step forward and describe their perspective to the event as well as the event as they saw it occur and their feelings and opinions of the murder. The incident at the time was touching and the Laramie Project bears touching recollection of that incident.

The Laramie Project is directed by Chris Baldrock and provides skilled acting as well as a convincing rendition of the tragedy. As such, it is provocative and moving causing people to think about gay rights and the rights of individuals as well as causing people to reflect about the ironies and paradoxes of the America of today. On the one and, America is diffused by its tradition of religious Protestantism and Puritanism and heavily influenced today by a Conservative and religious Right that includes a strong evangelical movement. This is predominant in part of the South. On the other hand, the core of American values (evidence, for instance, in states such as California and New York) veer strongly towards liberal values that include recognition of sex differentiation and strong revulsion against killing for whatever reason. America has always been split over ideological conflict between North and South. The Laramie Project indicates that this conflict continues.

The play is also provocative in that it raises questions about religious attitudes towards homosexuality and towards the murder of an individual simply because he was gay. The people of Laramie saw themselves as upright Americans in that they were simple, decent folk who practiced their religion dutifully. In fact, the two boys who killed Shepard were, initially, "ordinary, conforming locals" or, as Marge Murray put it "absolutely human." The script raises philosophical questions about conceptualization of 'decency' and 'moral uprightness" as well as the questions of evil: mostly how seemingly good man can stoop to evil such as this and how other can condone and legitimize the act. Other philosophical questions include sociology of knowledge and cultural influences on religious development, namely to which extent the society influences the religion or the reverse. The churches in Laramie had differing perspectives on the murder, some being more influenced by American liberal values than others and their degrees of tolerance towards sexual difference, accordingly, differing.

There are times when the script seems overly sentimental (such as the emphasis placed on the deputy sheriff (Mercedes Herrero) who is exposed to HIV whilst assisting Shepard) and somewhat moralistic (such as with its depiction of the anti-gay preacher from Kansas at Shepard's funeral), but the whole may be excused by the moral lesson that the play wishes to impart. Shepard's death is and largely ignored despite it grotesque character. Baldock wishes the enormity of the event to come across and the actors' convincing performance succeeds in it doing so.

The play concludes with a Camus like touch with the moving brief scene of the courtroom indicating that essentially it is the entire town that is on verdict rather then the men alone. This reminds me of the Deuteronomy prescription that if a man's body is found between two towns, both neighboring towns must bring sacrifices for the inhabitants of both towns are responsible for not seeing that the wayfarer (traveling between the two towns) was adequately protected. The murderers came from Laramie. The town may have not known about their act, but the fact that they came from that town and were raised in the city's ideological milieu makes the entire town responsible for the murder. It is the town that is on trial as well, and the fact that Matthew's father appeals the death penalty for McKinney ("This is the time to begin the haling process. To show mercy to someone who refused to dhow any mercy") brings an aspect of hope and forgiveness to the scene that counterbalances the horror of the homicide.

The intent of the play is to transmit the enormity of the event and its objective is summed up by one of the actors, Dr. Cantway, the emergency room doctor, who upon seeing the body opines that his mind refused to grasp the fact that this horror was perpetrated by other men.