This is an interesting discussion and one we talked about a lot in rehearsal for 'Laramie'. During the first week, we spent most of our time telling personal stories to one another. One of our discoveries was that amateur story-tellers do caricature people we are talking about--especially people that we love and admire, because we are just trying to capture the essence of that person's physical presence instead of an imitation. The things that each of us are best known for are our idiosyncrasies. And we found that the common reaction by others who know and admire the people we're embodying is, in fact, laughter--warm, appreciative laughter, not mocking. But I admit it's a fine line, and we probably blew past it a couple of times in our ultimate performance.

That said, I would hesitate to presume what the Tectonics were intending in their script. Though it's obvious that they were genuinely affected by the people they met in Laramie and surprised by the interconnectedness of the community, they didn't give every character equal reverence. There are people whose mispronunciations, bad historical references, and bad facts are allowed in the script, while others are not. These interviews were carefully edited by the Tectonics to tell their version of this story (read Dennis Shepard's entire 16-page court testimony if you want to talk about bias). I don't think it's unfair to say that they were making fun of some of what they heard.

I think the interesting question for "The Laramie Project" is whether it will survive as a memorial or as a play. The previous productions that I have seen were both very affecting--but less as drama, than in the way that a candlelight vigil is affecting. We took the approach at Strawshop that if we could recreate the conflict between the New York actors and the Wyoming subjects, we could find dramatic tension--the kind of tension that would be mandated if this was a work of fiction.

I agree with Brendan that there are places where that conceit runs against the structure of the play. On the other hand, it gave me a much greater appreciation for the mystery novel way that much of the script is constructed (in previous productions, I actually lost track of the sequence of events). And it allowed us to put heart where we thought it was called for, without setting up every line these poor people uttered on tape to be heard as timelessly profound.