I Should be Working on the Final, but...

I just had one more thought about the Laramie Project. I'm remembering the article we read about Jose Can You See? One of the main points of the article was that people took for granted that West Side Story was an accurate presentation of Hispanic Americana. I'm skeptical about that point, but it may well be that people took WSS that seriously. If that is the case, then why are we so reluctant to consider the possibility that the Laramie of the Project might seem like to be a real representation of the actual town of Laramie?

I think that, given that these words are the actual words of interviewed members of the Laramie community, it might be reasonable to assume that the audience would be disarmed by the power of their arrangement within the play. I'm not suggesting that this play is propaganda, but I am suggesting that as the motives of Kaufman become clear in the representations of the events, it might be possible that he is arranging the truth to suit his purposes.

That is not a criticism of the play. Every playwright manipulates the truth for a desired result. It is important, though, that you and I as an audience must be aware of it.

Laramie Project

I think everyone is making interesting arguments about the Laramie Project as a play. I think the Laramie Project does exactly what theatre should do; promote a change. Kaufman goes about it a different way though, instead of creating something from his own mind, he took an actual event and gave actual accounts from the people involved in the small town of Laramie. As far as acting in this show, I don't think I could. I don't think anyone can get into the mindset of the people that were effected by this story. These words weren't written, they were actual feelings. In this type of theatre though, your goal is to tell a story, not act the way you feel. I don't think you could just say these words and not have any emotion behind them though especially if you know the story behind Matthew Shepard.

babble babble

I wanted to talk about what happened in class today as well. I think I just have a really hard time expressing my feelings about this because I wrote the letter saying I would direct it. Honestly, I don't think I could ever direct this play. I stick by my statement that this play is not for the sudience to come in and feel sympathy for Matthew Shepard; sympathy never got anyone anywhere. I think the reason Kaufman and the rest of his company compiled this script was to drive people out of their cushiony theatre seats and into the senate, the house, and the streets. Seems like here in Louisville, we are only in the streets..maybe the same is true for Laramie. There's a definie split in our society as to which is more effective, lobbying or protesting. Some say both, but Americans are entirely too lazy to go through all that. :)
Seriously though, I just don't know if I could commit to using the Brechtian technique because I am not as badass as Mosies Kaufman, and am way too emotionally involved in these news stories. But then again, I don't think I would want someone who just did not care about the issues of GLBT to direct it either. I don't know..I never come to any conclusions in these posts.

The Laramie Project

If you guys couldn't tell, this play really got to me.

I was really interested when Jeremy talked about not being sure whether or not he could trust the writers or if it was a genuine reflection on the people in Laramie. We made it fairly clear that journalistic interviewing is different from theatrical interviewing. One thing that was said reminded me of something I saw on TV one time...I was watching this "documentary" about reality television (primarily MTV's Real World, Survivor and The Bachelor) and they were all talking about how they were so surprised by how they were depicted on their shows. A few of them even talked about how the producers (during their one on one face time) would egg them on with certain questions and telling them certain things in order to work up some tension or an emotion from them. Then they would edit the clips together to make situations appear worse than they actually were. I feel that we can all agree that reality television is not the best example of reality and I can totally see where there would be some truth behind the former reality stars saying that.

The Laramie Project seemed to be much more honest. There wasn't really a part that I read that stood out to me as something that could be fake or held back. I also got to thinking that these people who were interviewed would probably be more honest then not because (even though I have no proof of this) I would assume that they had to agree to it before signing anything. By essentially volunteering for this, I assume that they were prepared to be honest. Also, most people seem to have respect for the people in situations like this, especially when it hits so close to home that it would probably have been a huge deal on their emotions to try to fake it. It's sometimes hard to put ourselves in the minds of people like the ones depicted in this play when we haven't been there. But being one who has dealt with some traumatic deaths (including living in Boston and being in lock down at school during 9/11) I feel that it would be extremely difficult for me to lie or hold back in situations that would drag up so much emotion out of me.

Also, while looking up some stuff I came across this picture of Matthew Shepard as a baby...for me, it reminds me that this was a person whose family has to deal with this still and not just a case: