Anna Deavere Smith: My Review
In her latest evening of taped interviews transformed into performed mini-monologues, Anna Deavere Smith investigates life, death, the body. I remain impressed by the variety of Smith’s interests, but her impersonations of real-life folks — ranging here from Lance Armstrong to South African orphanage director Trudy Howell — is starting to grate. Smith simply isn’t a good enough mimic to keep all her subjects from blending together. She is, however, a wonderful editor of her transcripts. I was glad I saw this new piece, at New York’s Second Stage Theatre, but wished I were home reading it instead of watching the diminishing returns of it in performance.
