Anna Deavere Smith
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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> New York
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( S ) -> Smith, Anna Deavere
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> United States
Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
Comentary on Understanding and Racism 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 13 people found this review helpful.
Having lived in Brooklyn during the riots as well as the afterward subsequent search for meaning among those immediately involved, I find Smith's work to be exceptional. She does not go to academics or political pundits for explanation, but into the heart of the Crown Heights community itself. There she finds and then portrays complete understanding of cultural differences, allowing explanation to come from the source. One has only to read Smith's work here to see that we as human beings could do alot to combat racism if only we would ask questions and seek understanding first, rather than make assumptions and insist on our own meaning.
Playing a Life Playing a Role 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
In Fires in the Mirror, Anna Deavere Smith says, "A character from a play does not have a visible identity until the actor creates a body for that character." She goes on to explain that her goal is "to show that no one acts like anyone else." She does this by focusing on the details of her characters, the physical and liguistic subtleties that make people unique. This issue of "personality" of character is strongly emphasized in her work. When interviewing, she doesn't simply record the dialogue of her characters; she analyzes her characters, seeking to discover the true identity or identities of the people she portrays. What she discovers--and shares with us--is that her characters are not only three dimensional, but three dimensional in a multiplicity of roles. When she's successful, as she is in portraying the Jews and Blacks of Crown Heights in 1991, the underlying racial conflicts and hatreds and biases of her many-masked characters rise to the surface. This is Anna Deavere Smith's craft: She doesn't play a role. She plays a life playing a role.
Editorial Review:
A combination of complete playscript, background material, and photographs presents an acclaimed play, a tour-de-force solo performance dealing with the Crown Heights racial riots, offering a documentary picture of contemporary ethnic unrest.
