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Behind the Sheet
An important medical breakthrough has a shameful history. In 1840s Alabama, a slave-owning doctor performs medical experiments on involuntary subjects - enslaved women - in an effort to solve the problem of fistulas, a post-childbirth anomaly. As the experiments proceed, and he gets close to a solution, the women try to survive and even find dignity in the face of inhuman treatment.
Includes conversations with playwright Charly Evon Simpson and Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, author of Medical Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology.
Recorded at The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood, in August 2019.
Behind the Sheet is part of L.A. Theatre Works' Relativity Series featuring science-themed plays. Lead funding for the Relativity Series is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, bridging science and the arts in the modern world.
Directed by Rosalind Ayres, Inger Tudor
Producing Director Susan Albert Loewenberg
Monica McSwain as Mary
Matthew Floyd Miller as Samuel and Edward
Dominique Morisseau as Dinah
Larry Powell as Lewis and Benjamin
Devon Sorvari as Josephine
Jasmine St. Clair as Betty
Josh Stamberg as George
Danielle Moné Truitt as Sally
Karen Malina White as Philomena
Narrated by Inger Tudor
Associate Artistic Director, Anna Lyse Erikson. Sound Designer and Mixing Mark Holden for The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood. Senior Radio Producer, Ronn Lipkin. Foley Artist, Jeff Gardner. Recording Engineer and Neil Wogensen.
Includes conversations with playwright Charly Evon Simpson and Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, author of Medical Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology.
Recorded at The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood, in August 2019.
Behind the Sheet is part of L.A. Theatre Works' Relativity Series featuring science-themed plays. Lead funding for the Relativity Series is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, bridging science and the arts in the modern world.
Directed by Rosalind Ayres, Inger Tudor
Producing Director Susan Albert Loewenberg
Monica McSwain as Mary
Matthew Floyd Miller as Samuel and Edward
Dominique Morisseau as Dinah
Larry Powell as Lewis and Benjamin
Devon Sorvari as Josephine
Jasmine St. Clair as Betty
Josh Stamberg as George
Danielle Moné Truitt as Sally
Karen Malina White as Philomena
Narrated by Inger Tudor
Associate Artistic Director, Anna Lyse Erikson. Sound Designer and Mixing Mark Holden for The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood. Senior Radio Producer, Ronn Lipkin. Foley Artist, Jeff Gardner. Recording Engineer and Neil Wogensen.
Audible Audio
Published February 15, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 20, 2021
A play presentation based on actual historical happenings. Doctors who used their own slaves (and those of others) to do medical experimentation in the efforts to find solutions to gynecological/obstetrical issues related to fistulas that may occur at birth or other times. The author shines a bright light on all the times slave owners used without compunction African Americans to further their medical knowledge or keep a woman in good breeding condition. As a reader it is horrifying to realize what is unfolding, and that it really happened.
It was a regular expectation of owners to be able to use, remove parts and pieces, generally interfere with and "fix" the bodies of people they "owned". George Washington's dentures were made from the teeth of his slaves. Can you imagine?! Your healthy teeth being pulled out of your head so your rich-enough-to-eat-sweets owner can have them. It's appalling, astounding, awful - all the a words. Then there is the rape and pillage. . . it is simply unspeakable. Centuries of it. This book starts a reader thinking and a terrible door opens. The reminder and realization of all this and more spread over me as I listened. . . .shameful, uncomfortable, but needful to keep in our remembrance.
It was a regular expectation of owners to be able to use, remove parts and pieces, generally interfere with and "fix" the bodies of people they "owned". George Washington's dentures were made from the teeth of his slaves. Can you imagine?! Your healthy teeth being pulled out of your head so your rich-enough-to-eat-sweets owner can have them. It's appalling, astounding, awful - all the a words. Then there is the rape and pillage. . . it is simply unspeakable. Centuries of it. This book starts a reader thinking and a terrible door opens. The reminder and realization of all this and more spread over me as I listened. . . .shameful, uncomfortable, but needful to keep in our remembrance.
February 27, 2025
This play is phenomenal. I listened to a full cast narrate it, and it was extremely powerful and moving. I had no idea what the actual history was surrending this play which fictionalizes aspects of American medical history, but I can say that it's yet another example of how the medical field used and abused black women's bodies in the name of advancing science and medicine that would benefit the white community.
If you're interested in knowing the truth about America's dark, medical history, plays, and reading about how hope is blinding, then this could be for you!
[Borrowed from Hoopla via my library]
If you're interested in knowing the truth about America's dark, medical history, plays, and reading about how hope is blinding, then this could be for you!
[Borrowed from Hoopla via my library]
February 2, 2024
2024 review:
I first read Behind the Sheet almost two years ago, and I decided to revisit it for two main reasons. The first reason is that it was the first ever audioplay I had listened to. When I listened to it, I was still just getting the hang of listening to plays, or anything with an ensemble cast, compared to a single narrator reading a novel. Audio takes a really separate skillset for me, and each new thing I try is something I have to learn. I've listened to dozens of audioplays since this one, and I've become comfortable with the medium. I find it easier to understand what's going on. I also have come to favour these LA Theatre Works productions, which means I'm more familiar with their casts and how they're set up. I really wanted to see what I thought of Behind the Sheet on a reread because I remember struggling somewhat, but it's a skill I've built a lot since then. The second reason I wanted to revisit it is because I remembered an informative and insightful interview with historian Deirdre Cooper Owens after the play, and since I read the play I have also read Deirdre Cooper Owens' book Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. With that historical knowledge of what the contents of the play were based on, and a book from the interviewee under my belt, it seemed appropriate to go back to where my experience with audioplays and my knowledge of the historical subject started. And I'm so glad that I did!
I loved this more the second time around, and I increased my star rating to reflect that. I think the cast did an excellent job. Karen Malina White in particular delivers a phenomenal performance, but I also enjoyed hearing a performance from Dominique Morisseau, who wrote the play Pipeline, which I also listened to (also starring Karen Malina White!). I also really have come to enjoy performances from Josh Stamberg, and he is very believable as George, the doctor performing the medical experiments in the play.
The story was a moving and devastating interpretation of history that centres the lives of enslaved women and the bonds that they form as they are made to work on each other during these experiments. The characters feel like fully realised people, which in the context is so important to achieve. It's a story about something incredibly painful, but it manages to be about more than just their pain, but about what their lives were like and the relationships they shared.
I loved hearing the interview with Deirdre Cooper Owens again, which is what prompted me to finally get around to reading Medical Bondage. I'm glad they gave her adequate time to answer with historical depth. It's probably one of my favourite interviews I've heard at the end of an LA Theatre Works production. There's also an interview with playwright Charly Evon Simpson, which is also very good! It was great to get more info and hear more about how the play came to be.
I'm so glad that I decided to revisit this one. Behind the Sheet is a devastating read, with some devastating performances given, but it highlights such an important part of history with care and love for the women involved. I definitely recommend checking this out.
2022 review:
4 stars.
Behind the Sheet was my first audioplay! I really enjoy audio even though I absorb the story better visually, but I thought that this might have helped since plays are meant to be performed. I honestly found it a little harder to follow than usual since it took time for me to be able to figure out which voices went with which character. That said, I still enjoyed it greatly. The play is emotional and educational, and the extra commentary added to the learning experience while the quality actors added to the emotion. It's a dark and necessary look into the racist and chilling origins of gynecology, a field pioneered by doctors who experimented on enslaved Black women without any form of sedation, even when sedation became available and more commonly used. It's a fictional interpretation but the historical influences are clear (and the portions with extra interviews at the end help clarify which parts were factual). Definitely worth reading or seeing/hearing it performed!
I first read Behind the Sheet almost two years ago, and I decided to revisit it for two main reasons. The first reason is that it was the first ever audioplay I had listened to. When I listened to it, I was still just getting the hang of listening to plays, or anything with an ensemble cast, compared to a single narrator reading a novel. Audio takes a really separate skillset for me, and each new thing I try is something I have to learn. I've listened to dozens of audioplays since this one, and I've become comfortable with the medium. I find it easier to understand what's going on. I also have come to favour these LA Theatre Works productions, which means I'm more familiar with their casts and how they're set up. I really wanted to see what I thought of Behind the Sheet on a reread because I remember struggling somewhat, but it's a skill I've built a lot since then. The second reason I wanted to revisit it is because I remembered an informative and insightful interview with historian Deirdre Cooper Owens after the play, and since I read the play I have also read Deirdre Cooper Owens' book Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. With that historical knowledge of what the contents of the play were based on, and a book from the interviewee under my belt, it seemed appropriate to go back to where my experience with audioplays and my knowledge of the historical subject started. And I'm so glad that I did!
I loved this more the second time around, and I increased my star rating to reflect that. I think the cast did an excellent job. Karen Malina White in particular delivers a phenomenal performance, but I also enjoyed hearing a performance from Dominique Morisseau, who wrote the play Pipeline, which I also listened to (also starring Karen Malina White!). I also really have come to enjoy performances from Josh Stamberg, and he is very believable as George, the doctor performing the medical experiments in the play.
The story was a moving and devastating interpretation of history that centres the lives of enslaved women and the bonds that they form as they are made to work on each other during these experiments. The characters feel like fully realised people, which in the context is so important to achieve. It's a story about something incredibly painful, but it manages to be about more than just their pain, but about what their lives were like and the relationships they shared.
I loved hearing the interview with Deirdre Cooper Owens again, which is what prompted me to finally get around to reading Medical Bondage. I'm glad they gave her adequate time to answer with historical depth. It's probably one of my favourite interviews I've heard at the end of an LA Theatre Works production. There's also an interview with playwright Charly Evon Simpson, which is also very good! It was great to get more info and hear more about how the play came to be.
I'm so glad that I decided to revisit this one. Behind the Sheet is a devastating read, with some devastating performances given, but it highlights such an important part of history with care and love for the women involved. I definitely recommend checking this out.
2022 review:
4 stars.
Behind the Sheet was my first audioplay! I really enjoy audio even though I absorb the story better visually, but I thought that this might have helped since plays are meant to be performed. I honestly found it a little harder to follow than usual since it took time for me to be able to figure out which voices went with which character. That said, I still enjoyed it greatly. The play is emotional and educational, and the extra commentary added to the learning experience while the quality actors added to the emotion. It's a dark and necessary look into the racist and chilling origins of gynecology, a field pioneered by doctors who experimented on enslaved Black women without any form of sedation, even when sedation became available and more commonly used. It's a fictional interpretation but the historical influences are clear (and the portions with extra interviews at the end help clarify which parts were factual). Definitely worth reading or seeing/hearing it performed!
November 13, 2022
This is an incredibly powerful play that vividly brings home the brutality of slavery and the inhumanity of J. Marion Sims' experimental surgeries, however 'wellmeaning' and however good his achievements. It also highlights how Black women's pain continues to not be taken seriously. Thought provoking and disturbing.
May 5, 2020
Behind the Sheet
By: Charly Evon Simpson
Narrated by: Monica McSwain, Matthew Floyd Miller, Dominique Morisseau, Larry Powell, Devon Sorvari, Josh Stamberg, Jasmine St. Clair, Danielle Truitt, Inger Tudor, Karen Malina White
Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
Performance
Release date: 02-15-20
Publisher: L.A. Theatre Works
This play is based on the story of Dr. J. Marion Sims, who is known as the father of modern gynecology. In this play Dr. Barry is trying to find a way to close fistulas after childbirth. To do so he is buying slave women who suffer from the affliction or are about to give birth. His treatment of slave women completely reflects the attitudes of the times, in that he experiments on the women thinking they are lesser humans because they are black.
While the future has benefited from the work of the doctor, at what cost? He forgoes anesthesia on the slave women because they are "less prone to pain" than white women. All his experimental surgeries are done by having the other slaves hold down the woman get the treatment at the time and then opium afterward. At one point another doctor says that ether is available for surgeries, but he says he won't need it until he's perfected his treatment and will then use that on white women.
How the women around cope with and survive the inhuman treatment is the story here. They struggle to maintain their dignity. During the listening of this performance I found myself uncomfortable with the treatment of the women. If that is the point of this play, then well done, job complete.
I did think that the doctor, even though his name was changed for the play, was treated to nicely. It's pretty barbaric the way he treats the slave women as mere animals that he can just pluck out of the metaphorical cage and begin experimenting on. Reminded me a lot of the stories coming out of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. I think I would have made the doctor more of a monster but he gets a bit of a soft brush when painting his character.
Disturbing, drama, and a spotlight on a time in history we all wish would never have happened, but we constantly need that reminder.
Again another great production from L.A. Theatre Works that puts you in the middle of the performance.
By: Charly Evon Simpson
Narrated by: Monica McSwain, Matthew Floyd Miller, Dominique Morisseau, Larry Powell, Devon Sorvari, Josh Stamberg, Jasmine St. Clair, Danielle Truitt, Inger Tudor, Karen Malina White
Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
Performance
Release date: 02-15-20
Publisher: L.A. Theatre Works
This play is based on the story of Dr. J. Marion Sims, who is known as the father of modern gynecology. In this play Dr. Barry is trying to find a way to close fistulas after childbirth. To do so he is buying slave women who suffer from the affliction or are about to give birth. His treatment of slave women completely reflects the attitudes of the times, in that he experiments on the women thinking they are lesser humans because they are black.
While the future has benefited from the work of the doctor, at what cost? He forgoes anesthesia on the slave women because they are "less prone to pain" than white women. All his experimental surgeries are done by having the other slaves hold down the woman get the treatment at the time and then opium afterward. At one point another doctor says that ether is available for surgeries, but he says he won't need it until he's perfected his treatment and will then use that on white women.
How the women around cope with and survive the inhuman treatment is the story here. They struggle to maintain their dignity. During the listening of this performance I found myself uncomfortable with the treatment of the women. If that is the point of this play, then well done, job complete.
I did think that the doctor, even though his name was changed for the play, was treated to nicely. It's pretty barbaric the way he treats the slave women as mere animals that he can just pluck out of the metaphorical cage and begin experimenting on. Reminded me a lot of the stories coming out of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. I think I would have made the doctor more of a monster but he gets a bit of a soft brush when painting his character.
Disturbing, drama, and a spotlight on a time in history we all wish would never have happened, but we constantly need that reminder.
Again another great production from L.A. Theatre Works that puts you in the middle of the performance.
March 5, 2020
I listened to the L.A. Theatre Works audio drama.
Mixed feelings about this one. This is such important part of history, which I discovered years ago during my research into 19th century American medicine, specifically as it intersects with slavery. So I'm glad this play exists, but I dislike Simpson's choice to change the names. I also think she was too easy on Dr. J. Marion Sims (his real name) or Dr. George Barry in this version. The way he was using these women as human test subjects came across as mildly troubling rather than disturbing, and Philomena the (fictional) woman with whom he was having a (fictional) sexual relationship seemed flattered and proud to be in such a relationship. Maybe it was partially the actor who played Barry, who had a warm, caring voice IMO. I loved the interviews with the playwright and with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, author of Medical Bondage--I'll be reading that soon.
Mixed feelings about this one. This is such important part of history, which I discovered years ago during my research into 19th century American medicine, specifically as it intersects with slavery. So I'm glad this play exists, but I dislike Simpson's choice to change the names. I also think she was too easy on Dr. J. Marion Sims (his real name) or Dr. George Barry in this version. The way he was using these women as human test subjects came across as mildly troubling rather than disturbing, and Philomena the (fictional) woman with whom he was having a (fictional) sexual relationship seemed flattered and proud to be in such a relationship. Maybe it was partially the actor who played Barry, who had a warm, caring voice IMO. I loved the interviews with the playwright and with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, author of Medical Bondage--I'll be reading that soon.
March 31, 2022
This is an horrific documental book about a so called gynecologist doctor preforming experimental surgery on black women who were slaves in 1845. It discloses the ugliness of how the women had to endure surgical pain more than 20 times without the help of being given anesthesia during the procedure. This was a tear jerking moment for me learning how much my ancestors had suffered - all because a white man wanted to make a name for himself.
.
.
October 1, 2025
i hated reading this book and i hate thinking about this book, but oh my lord what an amazing piece of art this is. fictionalized but true, nauseating and accurate, i feel for anarcha, lucy, and betsy even more than i did reading the various snippets of their lives that marion sims decided were worthy to write about. the history of american gynecology is a bleak one that needs to be shared with anyone looking to become a doctor. honestly, with everyone. what a captivating play
December 3, 2020
*2.5*
It was kind of a slog to get through. I felt like the characters of Lewis and some of the other slave women were unnecessary, did not add to the plot. Maybe watching an actual production of the play might change my mind. I'm glad that there is a play that talks about this moment of history, but I wish it was a little bit more engaging.
It was kind of a slog to get through. I felt like the characters of Lewis and some of the other slave women were unnecessary, did not add to the plot. Maybe watching an actual production of the play might change my mind. I'm glad that there is a play that talks about this moment of history, but I wish it was a little bit more engaging.
February 7, 2024
Oh by golly by gosh this was a really good script to read and I would love to see if willing!
It was very heavy in some parts of the script due to the content, but it was written so well.
It basically is a historical fiction of the beginning of modern gynecology and the cure for fistulas.
It highlights the lives of the women who suffered under so many surgeries to make this cure possible.
It was very heavy in some parts of the script due to the content, but it was written so well.
It basically is a historical fiction of the beginning of modern gynecology and the cure for fistulas.
It highlights the lives of the women who suffered under so many surgeries to make this cure possible.
Read
December 23, 2020I listened to the LA Theater Works performance of this play and it is phenomenal--the content fascinating, the actors amazing, the story and the text compelling. A must listen, and someday a must-see if we ever get out of the pandemic.
March 28, 2023
dark, chilling history of medicine that's sadly more fact than fiction.
November 25, 2024
Amazing play please read it. I did a whole report on the author and mortality rates in black mothers and even though it’s an old story, it is still very important in today’s world.
November 3, 2025
Heartbreaking brutal
Based on a true story all I am glad that his statue was removed
Based on a true story all I am glad that his statue was removed
May 21, 2020
I received this as part of my Dramatists PlayService Book Club.
I enjoyed this play. This is a part of history I had no idea happened. I’m glad this play was able to introduce me to these women. I am interested in learning about the doctor and the women that inspired this play. The women that were forced into paving the way for other women deserve to be remembered. I would love to see this staged. I will also be looking into the resources provided by the author.
I enjoyed this play. This is a part of history I had no idea happened. I’m glad this play was able to introduce me to these women. I am interested in learning about the doctor and the women that inspired this play. The women that were forced into paving the way for other women deserve to be remembered. I would love to see this staged. I will also be looking into the resources provided by the author.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews