Anna Deavere Smith

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: APERFORMANCEAND CONVERSATION

Maryland Community News Online

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Heart beats

Acclaimed actress has her finger on the pulse of health care debate

by Liz Skalski | Staff Writer

Anna Deavere Smith brings to life the health care stories and struggles of nearly two dozen individuals from around the world In "Let Me Down Easy."

The actress, who has had roles in films such as "The American President" and "Philadelphia" and TV shows from "The West Wing" to "The Practice," has performed the one-woman show in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Texas.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, she will bring a condensed version to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park. Murray Nossel will moderate a postperformance discussion. Nossel is the founder of Narativ, a New York- and London-based company teaching communication, self-presentation, team building and leadership through storytelling.

Smith, 60, describes "Let Me Down Easy" as "a human story of the health care debate," in which she characterizes real people, helping to put a human face on the issue.

"The reason it's being debated is because we don't all agree," she says. "It's an important matter."

The production's journey to the stage began 10 years ago.

"It's been a long haul," Smith says of the years she spent interviewing 300 people throughout the U.S., Germany and Africa for the production.

Photo from University of MarylandCollege of Arts & Humanities Anna Deavere Smith will perform portraits from her newest solo show, "Let Me Down Easy," a consideration of ideas about the body, health, sickness and the end of life on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

"I went beyond America to tell this story," she says. "After so many, many hours of interviews, everyone who still stands in this version of the play has a message of resilience that I hope the audience will appreciate."

Smith says stories are told using the interviewees' own words.

"I seek to sound as much like them as I can," she says, citing examples like Lance Armstrong, seventime Tour de France winner and cancer survivor; Lauren Hutton, model and survivor of a devastating motorcycle accident; and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who died in September 2006 from esophageal cancer.

"Even the mighty people we see as winners are touched by something that made them vulnerable," she says.

Smith, a Baltimore native who has taught at New York University, Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon, spends about four weeks rehearsing for the one-hour show, working with a dialect coach and dancers to perfect choreography.

Smith says her interest in theater grew out of her interest in the English language.

"The way [William Shakespeare] used the English language, that really sparked my interest ... in the spoken word," she says. "I started to cultivate this unending interest with what words sound like when they come out of a person's mouth. What I listen for is what I call the song a person sings when they give an answer. How we speak tells something about who we are."

Smith says her family's heritage and her Christian upbringing also left an impression.

"Things that first impacted my heart were the sounds of my mother reading to me, singing to me. It never went away," Smith says. "The sound of hearing things stayed with me."

Emotions run high during "Let Me Down Easy." Throughout the presentation, some audience members may laugh, Smith says, while others may cry at the same experience. It's this diversity of emotions that has allowed her to succeed as an actress, she says.

"It's the point of why I do theater and the theater that I do. My work anticipates that people have multiple points of view."

eskalski@gazette.net

The Diamondback > Diversions

By Andrew Freedman Sunday, March 6, 2011

The human body is a very personal subject. We grow up with it, we grow old with it, and we are sick and well with it. Everyone's body treats them differently, and everyone has a different life experience.

At the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith will attempt to portray how people steer through their lives in sickness and in health — and the many obstacles that face them — with excerpts from her solo show Let Me Down Easy, which runs tomorrow and Wednesday. The show will be followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

"One of the things we talked to Anna about in the beginning was being able to craft an experience ... that specifically was a discussion of the topics and issues that were crucial to her creation of Let Me Down Easy," said Paul Brohan, director of artistic initiatives at CSPAC.

The portraitures and their views of health, ability, life and death bring up a hot topic, one particularly important in the nation's capital: health care.

"I'd say it's about the vulnerability of the body and the resilience of the spirit and the price of care," Smith said. "So it's really crossing over two things that are essential to our humanness, which is our body and its welfare and an understanding that, sadly, the rumor is true: It will not last forever."

Smith's characters come from over 300 interviews and include a range of real-life personas, from a former Texas governor to a bull rider to cyclist Lance Armstrong. She hopes the variety of personalities shows the importance of the vulnerability of the body and its effects on humanity.

"I see the play as the human story of health care that is being played out in politics and legislation and public debate and in the media," Smith said. "It should ask questions rather than give answers."

While the range of characters gives a variety of views on the topic, that doesn't mean Smith doesn't have her own political stance. Instead, she considers her performance an "accomplice to politics."

"Pretty much everything I'm about in any of my writings, my books, my teaching — everything is about social justice," she said. "If you look deeply in Let Me Down Easy, you will see that I'm certainly rooting for the guy who got the bad end of the stick."

And Smith is particularly excited about hearing her audience's responses to her work.

"What I love about a university atmosphere — and I speak in a lot of universities — is that I get a chance to stop my performing after an hour," Smith said. "I get to stop talking after an hour, and that

As a native of Baltimore, Smith has a special place in her heart for this university, making it different from her other university visits.

"What is significant to me about coming to Maryland is that actually I find what I'm doing is tiptoeing back, slowly coming home," she said.

Brohan expressed his interest in student attendance at Smith's performances and the importance of filling seats in CSPAC.

"I think this is a woman who is incredibly invested in the contemporary lifestyle of the United States and that all of us, including the students of the University of Maryland, have a particular investment in the issues that are facing all of us," Brohan said. "There are issues of health care, of individual health abilities and segments of health that are germane and important to our students on this campus as well as faculty and staff and the administration of this university."

For CSPAC, bringing in Smith is not only bringing in a talented artist but also addressing an important issue.

"I would say the entire experience is challenging and that part of her intent is to throw down the gauntlet of the issue and say, ‘We can't avoid this anymore. We can't ignore it anymore,'" Brohan said. "‘We have to address it.'"

For Smith, her excerpts from Let Me Down Easy and the subsequent conversation will not only resonate with the audience but will have a profound effect on her as well.

"What I think will happen if I'm working well ... is you're all bringing something about this dilemma, the vulnerability of your body, the resilience of spirit, the price of care," Smith said. "If I'm working well, what will happen is an adjustment about what you brought."

Perhaps most importantly for her, Smith has one goal she hopes to achieve at every performance, including her visit to CSPAC.

"One of the biggest compliments I ever got about Let Me Down Easy ... [was that], in the course of the time I was performing, I created a community out of those strangers in the audience," Smith said. "That's what I want to do."

Let Me Down Easy runs March 8 and 9 at the Ina and Jack Kay Theatre in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Tickets cost $42, $9 for students.

afreedman@umdbk.com