On Friday, September 11, I had the fortune to attend a
performance by Anna Deavere Smith at Memorial Hall in
The lecture was titled “Finding Grace and Kindness in a Winner-Takes-All Society.” But this event was not an ordinary lecture; it was a thought provoking performance. Anna Deavere Smith portrays people she has interviewed from around the world. Her portrayals are at once their voice and hers. She calls her work ‘documentary theatre.’
After introductions to a full house, Anna Deavere Smith walks on stage wearing billowing black pants and a black blouse. She is barefoot, she says, so she may ‘walk in the shoes of others.’
She begins with the loud gruff voice of Studs Turkle, a
She moves on to a Rwandan refugee who suffered the horrors
of genocide and has lost her mother, father and brothers at the age of 6. Then
there is the physician at a charity hospital in
We see and hear the humor of the late Governor of Texas, Ann
Richards, who is trying to protect her ‘chi’ while undergoing cancer treatment
and the love, kindness and determination of Trudy Howell, director of an
orphanage in
Anna Deavere Smith ended with advice she was given by a linguist on how to get her interview subjects to open up and tell their story. She was told to ask these 3 questions.
Have you ever come close to death?
Do you
know the circumstances of your birth?
Have you ever been accused of something you did not do?
After she took a few questions from the audience, Anna Deavere Smith left the stage to a standing ovation.
~Suzanne Sullivan
