Review: Anna Deavere Smith's groundbreaking blend of theater and activism seen ... - Contra Costa Times

Anna Deavere Smith has long championed the arts as a vital part of democracy, envisioning the theater as a town hall where social change can be sparked. What's truly radical about this piece, gently directed by Leah C. Gardiner, is that Smith outlines the issues in the first act but she turns the debate over to the audience in the second act, leaving it up to us to frame the discourse. While she is best known in pop culture circles for "Nurse Jackie" and "The West Wing," in the theater she is famed as an innovator who has striven to take documentary theater to new heights. Here she is experimenting at the crossroads of art and public policy. Hoping to spark a new war on poverty (not to mention social injustice), she interviewed teachers, students, cops and criminals from coast to coast. From a strictly theatrical perspective, the play is less explosive than her previous works, and the narrative of the evening is less rigorously shaped. Smith also suggests connections between crumbling public schools and recent riots in cities such as Baltimore that the narrative doesn't yet. Source: www.contracostatimes.com