The Laramie Project

Looking back, Rapier said the first "Laramie Project" changed Plan-B in every possible way.

"We really found our voice as a company that socially conscious theater really was what we do well. ... It was a unique, moving experience for everyone involved. It wasn't just another show," Rapier said.

I'm very thankful for Plan-B, and glad I finally found an excuse to read The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project. I don't know it put the company "on the map" ... but it sure established a new map.

It's a daunting read, encountering it on the page: a sprawling list of characters and settings and perspectives. It's like the transcript of a documentary that was never made. Mary Dickson's Exposed is a similar kind of play: excerpts of interviews all very true-to-life. It's a fascinating form, this cross between journalism (or New Journalism) and theatre, especially when it includes the journalist(s). Laramie, in particular, gives a feeling of objectivity: a feeling that this is direct truth, that even a huge prose nonfiction work would be wrought with biases that don't appear here, because everyone is simply speaking for themselves.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a discussion with Moises Kaufman when he was in town for The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, An Epilogue, and this very feeling of ovjectivity is something he addressed. Because , of course it's bullshit ... in the best possible meaning of the word. The stage docudrama feels objective but once you cut, edit and arrange you are creating context and thereby commentary. There no sleight-of-hand here, as it's the nature of all journalism and all history. It's a fascinating form, and perhaps the perfect form for a socially active theatre that foregrounds issues. Theatre is a medium, not a message ... we needn't restrict ourselves to fiction any more than film or prose does.

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Perhaps it's just my own reading experience this year, but I wonder how intentional this is:

The Laramie Project, Act III

The stage is now empty except for several chairs stage right. They occupy that half of the stage. [...] As the lights come up, several actors are sitting there dressed in black.

Our Town, Act III

On the right-hand side, a little right of the center, ten or twelve ordinary chairs have been placed in three openly spaced rows facing the audience. These are graves in the cemetery.