Theater of Suicide

Suicide has been the province of psychiatrists, sociologists, moralists, theologians, and the occasional anthropologist (Durkheim). It has not gotten much attention from students of theater and dramatic performance. The contributors to Suicide as a Dramatic Performance assume that such a perspective can be illuminating – for some, though not all suicides.

The editors, David Lester and Steven Stack, offer some striking examples that establish the prima facie plausibility of their approach: “On November 25, 1970, in Tokyo, Japan, Yukio Mishima, aged forty-five and a successful Japanese novelist, decided to take his paramilitary force, invade an army base, and persuade the soldiers there to overthrow the Japanese government and restore the Emperor to absolute power. The soldiers refused to follow his commands. Mishima then committed seppuku. He took a knife and ripped his abdomen open, and then his loyal assistant decapitated him. What a death! Mishima orchestrated his suicide, and the report of his suicide by the media captured worldwide attention. The setting of his suicide, the manner of his suicide, and the timing of it all added to the dramatic aspects of the act.”

The better known example is 9/11: “This act of martyrdom for an Islamic cause created images that haunt us still today. The planes hitting and damaging the towers, the response of those rushing to the towers, the collapse of the towers, and the scenes of people fleeing the scene—all of these images added to the impact that Atta and his team had hoped to create. However you might label or judge those involved in this attack, you cannot deny the drama created by their actions.”

Religious suicides are often highly ritualized: “The thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate cult, who died by suicide together on March 26, 1997, all clothed themselves identically and positioned themselves in their beds in the same way.”

The editors suggest that “Perhaps the best example is the suicide of Mitchell Heisman . . . who dressed in white and went to the Yard at Harvard University where he shot himself at 11 am in front of some twenty spectators, leaving a 1,900 page suicide note. He dressed for the occasion, chose a time and place, decided to use a gun, and left a unique suicide note for others to read.”

Their analysis works best, of course, for premeditated suicides, in which the person chooses time, location, manner of suicide, whether to leave a note and how long and explicit it should be. Sometimes, location and manner appear to be chosen for more pragmatic reasons: Suicides in hotel rooms or state parks are less likely to be interrupted; one young woman tried to overdose several times, but someone intervened to save her, so she hanged herself. But not all locations and methods are chosen for practical reasons. Some mean to be communicative acts, even bids for celebrity.

The editors admit they don’t know how widely these analyses apply. There hasn’t been enough research to determine that. But they are convincing in pointing out that some suicides may be intended as theater. And that insight might provide some help to people on the ground trying to prevent suicide.

One last note: The collection of essays dovetails neatly with Malcolm Gladwell’s recent analysis of school shootings (which often end in suicide) as copycat, ritualized performances that aim, in part to elevate the shooter to mythic status.