For theater fans in the DMV who weren’t lucky enough to catch Anna Deavere Smith’s one-woman play “Let Me Down Easy” at the Arena Stage last year, one of the shows was filmed for a PBS “Great Performances” special that will premiere Friday (Jan. 13) at 9 p.m.
Through the eclectic array of characters she inhabits in the play, Smith explores matters of the human body, the healthcare system and the resilience of the spirit -- all inspired by her time as a visiting professor at the Yale School of Medicine.
As with all of her productions, Smith’s characters in “Let Me Down Easy” depict real people that she has interviewed personally for the project, an experience that went relatively smoothly compared to a past round of interviews that she conducted in D.C. for her 2000 play “House Arrest: A Search for the American Character in and Around the White House, Past and Present.”
To create those characters, she spent five years interviewing hundreds of people - including Bill Clinton and Bob Dole during their presidential campaigns - and quickly discovered that getting politicians and other inside-the-Beltway types to open up was like pulling teeth.
“I did 520 interviews or something like that. And I think the best person to describe for me what was going on was the Jefferson scholar who said that Thomas Jefferson could never be found in verbal undress. And that’s the way people were in Washington. They’re very guarded. I call it haute couture of the language,” she told the Television Critics Association press tour last week in Pasadena, Calif.
Around the same time, the idea for "Let Me Down Easy" was just beginning to percolate, as Smith was requested by Yale medical school to write a piece about doctors and patients to perform at the Medical Grand Rounds. “I really put them off for a couple of years, mainly because I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of doctors,” Smith said.
But when she finally decided to give it a go and begin interviewing people to portray, she was pleased to learn that not all interview subjects are as fussy as the political types in D.C.
“To prepare to interview people in Washington, you’ve got to read their books. You’ve got to take them out to lunch. [But] I asked one question of those interviewees at Yale, just one: ‘What happened to you?’ That’s all I had to say,” said Smith. “[I got] long stories, taking off their clothes, showing me their scars. I said to one person, ‘Do you pray?’ [He] just started praying.
"So in that case, what I’m really looking for, in fact, is projects where I only have to ask one question and then people begin to display themselves verbally. I call it singing. And now that I can study video, really dancing in these beautiful, beautifully aesthetic true ways. I’m a student of expression.”
“Let Me Down Easy” premieres Jan. 13 at 9 p.m.
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