January 14, 2008

From medical care to theatrical muse

A new play by actress and writer Anna Deavere Smith about the resilience and fragility of the human body was hatched at Yale, where Smith interviewed doctors and patients.

Anna Deavere Smith was described by the New York Times as "The ultimate impressionist; she does people's souls."

About eight years ago, Asghar Rastegar, professor of internal medicine (nephrology), was profoundly influenced by someone he credits with making him a better doctor. It wasn’t an older, more seasoned clinician, or a brilliant, innovative scientist. It was an actress—Anna Deavere Smith.

“She finds meaning in the most common response,” Rastegar said of Smith’s unique brand of documentary theater. “She hears things nobody else could.”

Rastegar says that while physicians typically bring the science of medicine to the healing process, Smith, through her compassionate portrayal of patients, shines the light on their humanity. “She clearly impacted on the way I relate to patients,” he said.

After seeing one of Smith’s one-woman shows, Rastegar concluded that if his students could spend time with her and observed the way she interacts with people to gather her material, they would become better doctors. He invited Smith to come to the medical school as a visiting professor, and after some dogged persuasion, she agreed. Arriving in the summer of 2000, Smith immediately began interviewing physicians, nurses, patients and their families. The result was Rounding It Out, a 90-minute exploration of how doctors and patients view and communicate with each other. Her work, which included portrayals of Rastegar and Woody Lee, assistant dean of multicultural affairs, was performed twice at the medical school to packed houses. 

Since then, Smith has broadened and expanded Rounding It Out into a full-blown theatrical production with a broader focus on the resilience and fragility of the human body. That work, which is called Let Me Down Easy, includes some of the material Smith gathered at the medical school and presented in Rounding It Out, but she’s added interviews with survivors of the Rwandan genocide, former Texas Governor Ann Richards shortly before she died of cancer, Lance Armstrong, the head coach of the national champion University of Texas football team, AIDS victims in South Africa, and residents of New Orleans who survived Hurricane Katrina, among others. 

The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Smith is credited with creating a new form of theater. She examines controversial issues and events from multiple points of view, portraying a wide range of people involved with them. She performs all the parts herself, using her subjects’ own words and minimal props. Smith’s uncanny ability to inhabit the people she is portraying once prompted the New York Times to call her “the ultimate impressionist: she does people’s souls.”

Smith’s first play, Fires in the Mirror, which explored racial tensions between blacks and Jews in the Crown Heights riots of 1991 in New York City, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Twilight: Los Angeles, about the 1992 Los Angeles riots, won multiple awards. She has appeared in films, including Philadelphia, Rent and The American President, and had recurring roles on The West Wing and The Practice.

 

 Let Me Down Easy, which had its world premier at the Long Wharf Theatre, will run through Feb. 3. Following the matinee performance on Jan. 27th at 2 p.m., Rastegar and Lee will join Smith for an audience discussion.

In addition to her full schedule as a television and movie actress, an author, and stage performer, Smith is helping the medical school raise money for projects it is running in Uganda and South Africa.

“She is one of the greatest actors at work in the American theater.” says Rastegar, “Her phenomenal social conscience and commitment is an important foundation of her art.”

Tickets for Let me Down Easy may be purchased in person at the Long Wharf Theatre box office, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven; by phone at (203) 787-4282; or online at www.longwharf.org/bo_prices1.html.

—Jennifer Kaylin

 

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