The Eradication of Diphtheria Tetanus

The Eradication of Diphtheria Tetanus is Michael Tobias’ newly released play.

The United States is well into the first authoritarian dictatorship of its entire history with more than thirty percent of the American voting population having succumbed to what most voters consider to be the sudden emergence of an unimaginable state of affairs.

In the still tranquil confines of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. a middle-aged historian/curator accustomed to focusing on painterly details of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, nurtures an (outwardly wholly unexpected) adamant resolve to rouse his contemporaries and invoke an urgent reality.

Within seven months of feeling utterly benighted by the new political regime, this shy master of aesthetic focus – Mr. Henry Christian – has now shifted his attention with military precision to the optic mount and other components of a deadly weapon in his hands.

For his patriotic efforts, Christian will be massively captured and left to languish in the highest maximum security prison anywhere in the world. But he has an unusual cellmate, the younger Poibont, who is singularly motivated to goad, elicit and extract information from the art expert.

Their conversations, under constant video surveillance, comprise an unsettling picture of unexpected heroism, ethical resilience and civic ambiguities in the face of tyranny, complicity and disorienting subterfuge.

In the tradition of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, the eradication of diphtheria tetanus challenges every preconception of political and social apathy by laying bare the elusive but ultimately eruptive chain of thoughts that brings anonymity into a position of absolute clarity, conviction and effectiveness.

Michael Pastore’s review of the play is below:

A shrewd statistician and a troubled expert in art history meet in a maximum-security prison where they discuss their life’s secrets and their secret lives. The Eradication Of Diphtheria Tetanus is a two-act play deeper than Waiting For Godot, and more enlightening than My Dinner With Andre. This work of revolutionary genius illuminates politics, ethics, and psychology in an Orwellian world of unspeakable actions and unthinkable thoughts. At first we believe that this work is about two alienated strangers yet at the end we grasp the chilling truth that this story is about us.

You may find the original review here.

The eradication of diphtheria tetanus is available from Amazon.com as an ebook.