Moisés Kaufman’s play The Laramie Project is a book I read for school, and one which I find a very hard time comparing to the other books I’ve read. It is one of the most unique works of fiction I have ever read because none of it was actually written by Kaufman and Co. Rather, the whole theater troupe traveled to Laramie, Wyoming and created a script out of interviews they collected there. In that way, not a single line in the play was written; however, where lines are placed and structured next to each other helps create a narrative, which adds in artistic output. The Laramie Project really is a halfway point between fiction and nonfiction, and that makes it so hard for me to rank. When it comes to art, I often find the best way of seeing if something is truly great is to see if it holds up when compared to other great works of art. But how am I supposed to compare The Laramie Project to Moby-Dick or The Count of Monte Cristo? I suppose that judging this strange gallimaufry of narrative methods, The Laramie Project is very successful at what it was made to be; that is, to tell a story from as many perspectives and voices as possible to reach a point where common threads of truth in everyone’s narratives begin to be clear. 

At its core, The Laramie Project is about the murder of the gay man Matthew Shepherd and the lasting effects his murder had on American politics, awareness of hate crimes, and on the town of Laramie itself, where the murder happened. By collecting first-hand interviews, Kaufman is able to tell a story not from his own perspective or his troupe’s beliefs on Shepherd and the history of Laramie since, but rather from Laramie itself. In the play, the Laramie townsfolk talk mainly about how accepting Laramie truly is of gay people and Laramie’s views on religion. The amazing part is that there are so many voices from different sides that through the conflicting viewpoints, a common thread of what sort of town Laramie truly is becomes clear, and there is no “single story” of what Laramie is actually like. Overall, The Laramie Project is a good play and a fascinating work of postmodernist (if that’s a fitting use of the word) fiction.