In her two great masterpieces, “Fires in the Mirror” and “Twilight: Los Angeles,” the playwright-performer Anna Deavere Smith introduced America to a novel kind of docudrama. In shows dealing with the Crown Heights riot (following the death of a Black child struck by a Rabbinical motorcade) and the Los Angeles riot (following the police beating of Rodney G. King), Smith revealed to Americans just how acutely their views were impacted by their own identity.
By interviewing and closely observing scores of people of different races, genders and political points of view, and then precisely replicating them on stage, down to every stutter or exhale of breath, Smith accomplished something quite remarkable: she forced Americans to listen to each other. I think those two shows are among the greatest dramatic works of the late 20th century.
You might be surprised to know that those pieces are now 30 and 33 years old. Over the years, her pieces came to be performed by others, sometimes with one performer replicating what Smith first did herself, sometimes with groups of actors splitting up shows with characters speaking in monologues. Smith’s methodology also became more controversial in progressive circles — the 1990s shows were based on the idea of a neutral actor who could become, say, an elderly Asian woman, replete with an assumed accent. As the political winds changed, the idea of an actor of one identity speaking for, and as, someone of a different race or experience or sexual identity, came more frequently to be questioned. It’s an ongoing debate, which I always think should be considered on a case-by-case basis, like most of the other Facebook-style controversies in the performing arts.
Which brings us to “Notes from the Field,” a piece themed around education and the criminal justice system that opened Thursday night in Chicago for the first time. It’s quite a different work, still made up of many interviews, but they’re fused far more in service of a potent authorial statement deconstructing the so-called school-to-prison pipeline, more so than a journalistic-style collage of different points of view. Smith performed the 2015 show herself in many cities, but not in Chicago, where the skilled director Mikael Burke currently has cast the fine actors Mildred Marie Langford, Shariba Rivers and Adhana Reid to share the spotlight.
I have to be frank and say that none of Smith’s pieces are quite the same when they’re split between different performers; it is always something of a retrofit. But that’s no criticism of this trio of performers, who dive deep into 19 different characters such as the civil rights leader John Lewis, whose words end the show, as well as Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Bree Newsome Bass, an activist arrested for removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House in 2015; and Niya Kenny, a high school student from South Carolina who was arrested for documenting the violent treatment of a classmate by a school police officer. None of the 19 characters undermine the overarching authorial point of view. The world had changed by 2015 and Smith was responding by writing a very different kind of piece, one designed to wake up the audience and promote progressive change.
And, frankly, given that Smith now is into her 70s, that shift was fair enough. She still wants to use the form she mastered, or maybe even invented. But now she wants to employ it more explicitly in service of things she wants to say herself.
Burke’s production hadn’t fully gelled on Wednesday night, an observation I feel comfortable making because some of the evocations are so gorgeously wrought; all three of the performers have dazzling moments but there are others when the piece, which ran to 2 hours and 40 minutes Wednesday night, needs to find more variety, increase the dramatic tension and pick up the pace. I think more audience interaction, and less stylistic remove, would help; but I think the actors will achieve some of this themselves as they get fully comfortable with everyone.
Frankly, I felt at times like everyone here needed to free themselves from the memories of the older Smith masterworks and embrace the greatly changed style of this one. Burke has emphasized detail here, a crucial factor for anyone doing this particular writer, but with three actors, he could do to explore more of the whole vista and encourage his actors to let loose in a more politically cathartic kind of way. Smith is right there now, at least in the words on the page.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “Notes from the Field” (3 stars)
When: Through March 24
Where: TimeLine Theatre, 615 W, Wellington Ave.
Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes
Tickets: $57-$72 at 773-281-8463 and timelinetheatre.com
