Writing Assignment #5 analytical essay

Running Head : AN ANALYSIS OF THE LARAMIE PROJECT

An Analysis of The Laramie Project ' Using Bertolt 's Theory of Drama

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An Analysis of The Laramie Project

Bertolt Brecht is a very influential German poet and playwright who made contributions to theater productions and dramaturgy . A lifelong Marxist he made innovations for his epic theater ' by applying theoretical ideas into practice . He completely clashed with Aristotelian concept of drama , in which there is too much emotional involvement from the audiences . He argued that the

viewers should keep their emotional distance and theater should gear towards social change (Leeds 2010

The Laramie Project is the internationally-acclaimed play by Moises Kaufman . It chronicles the death of Matthew Shepard , a 21-year old gay student who was found tied and injured in a Wyoming cattle fence in 1998 . The flow of the story was like a documentary , again , another innovative approach espoused by Brecht . It also served to reinforce the play being an erzdhblend ' or an epic genre that distances the audiences from the incident and bringing the story in a new angle . The 400 interviews of the Laramie residents , with journal entries from Tectonic Theater Project members and Kaufman himself , is a quilt of storyline to convey the story of Shepard while looking at the crime in a different , nonchalant angle . It served to re-examine not just their attitudes towards different issues that involved in the incident , namely homosexuality , its phobia , and teenage delinquency and re-evaluate their attitudes . This...