A group of 8 persons reads the transcripts of 18 of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, held at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, between July 2004 and March 2005. The reading enacts the tribunals through their documentation — volumes of transcripts available for download from the U.S. Department of Defense website — as a way of speaking and making audible a record of quasi-legal proceedings that had been closed to public scrutiny. The readers rotate roles throughout the performance, at different moments embodying the figure of detainee, personal representative, Tribunal president, Tribunal member, translator, narrator, recorder and audience member.

Running Time: 4 hours, 4 minutes, 28 seconds

Readers / LeserInnen: Kyle deCamp, Kouross Esmaeli, Judy Greene, Patricia Hoffbauer, Dan Hurlin, Jesal Kapadia, Taisha Paggett, Lloyd Porter, George Emilio Sanchez, Mike Sperlinger.

Document of a four-hour public reading held at the Judson Memorial Church, New York City on March 11th, 2007.

click here for performance documentation

click for the U.S. Department of Defense website

9 Scripts from a Nation at War • 9 Scripts from a Nation at War • 9 Scripts from a Nation at War • 9 Scripts from a Nation at War •