| Description |
Lethal Theater reckons with the rituals of violence that underpin the American prison system, both domestically and abroad, and investigates the multiple roles medicine plays within it. This system is built on psychological and physical pain, but its relegation to realms inaccessible to the general public renders it largely unseen. The book asks readers to occupy multiple positions in relationship to this pain, but primarily to consider the act and complications of looking-at the spectacle of punishment, isolation, and interrogation, as mapped onto incarcerated bodies-by those who participate in and enforce dangerous prison practices, those who benefit from the exploitation of incarcerated bodies, and those who bear witness to suffering. It is an attempt to articulate and make visible an often invisible part of American pain. The collection unfolds in three sections. The first focuses on interrogation, isolation, and violence in prisons during periods of war; the second explores the history of medical experimentation on domestic prisoners; and the third investigates the intersection between anesthesia as used in hospital settings and in cases of lethal injection. Across all sections runs a first-person sequence anchored by a female "I" who is on the receiving end of physical violence, performs medical care and euthanasia while working for a veterinarian, and benefits from medical intervention to correct unspecified defects. This voice resists easy categorization, occupying the space among those who suffer violence, those who inflict it, and those who benefit from medical intervention. Inhabiting a public space beyond prison walls, it positions the reader in relationship to the private performances of violence that permeate iv the collection. The final section, a long poem, weaves together the book's primary threads. In presenting multiple voices-those of witness, medical personnel, execution squad, and the "I" of the previous sections-it stages a collision that raises questions about the nature of violence, the ethics of lethal injection, and the role of anesthesia as an agent of both care and death. Here, the prisoner's voice is notably absent. Instead, the space is filled by the voices of those who participate in, enable, or witness someone's annihilation by lethal injection. The book's final gesture invites the reader to contemplate that absence, and their own relationship to it. |
