Postmodern Ambivalence of Identities, Moralities and Law(lessness): The Detective-Criminal Continuum in Caleb Carr’s The Alienist

Abstract

Ajoka Theatre’s Barri/The Acquittal underscores one
major trend in post-colonial writing, that is, the prison theater, which in
Gary Boire’s view, revolves “parodically around such mechanisms of
authority as trial and judgment, discipline and imprisonment.” This
paper examines the features employed by Shahid Nadeem in Barri that
also characterize the postcolonial prison theatre which are: Foucault’s
illustration of the basic methodology of the body as text, the reversal of
the fool’s festival, the scapegoat ritual, a mocking mime, folk humor
which mimics official ceremonies, etc.” It also appropriately fits into the
category of the carnivalesque described by Bakhtin, a form which
directly disrupts all forms of official authority and systems of hegemony
and totalitarian control, which is another aspect of postcolonial prison
theatre. The Acquittal/ Barri graphically paints the abject conditions of
Pakistani prisons and their inmates. Nadeem unveils the inhuman and
derogatory treatment inflicted on women in prisons, exposing
simultaneously the circumstances and forces that are involved in
bringing them to this deplorable state. The play also focuses on the
patterns of torture designed specifically for female prisoners, and the
way female prisoners interact with each other, and their gradually
developing collective feminine consciousness. Simultaneously, the very
coercive system also reveals the gaps and fissures that allow for
expressions of freedom and transgression. Barri dissects and carves out
the body of ideology that helps shape systems of control, exhibiting
dramaturgies of freedom or rebellion against authority. The paper
explores how the play weaves out patterns of feminist theatre and the
postcolonial prison theatre that are affiliated in nature and aesthetics.