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Theater review: Anna Deavere Smith's 'Let Me

Down Easy'
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 9, 2011; 6:17 PM

The noted medical authority Lauren Hutton materializes at the midpoint of

"Let Me Down Easy," Anna Deavere Smith's engaging if oddly scattershot
evening of impersonations tied together by the topics of health care and
terminal illness.

Her profession helpfully identified as "supermodel" on an overhead

projection in Arena Stage's newly renovated Kreeger Theater, Hutton
expounds on her views of what doctors do. "It's a, it's a suspicious thing,"
Smith quotes her as saying. "It's a, it's like black magic. It's a suspicion. It's
a, it's mojo. It's mojo. And it scares me, and I don't scare easily."

As theatergoers well know, Smith is a devastating mimic, and her impression

of Hutton is up to her remarkable standard: The actress pulls back her upper
lip in a way that instantly conjures Hutton's trademark gaptoothed grin. It's
telling and it's funny. But you're left to wonder what contribution Hutton is
making in a piece that purports to examine some of the most complex policy
and moral issues of our time.

Yes, yes, celebrities are citizens, too, and you do need some daft moments to
offset the more sober reflections of ministers, physicians and other ethical
thinkers who fill out the gallery of personalities in "Let Me Down Easy."
Still, the inclusion of the voices of Hutton and Lance Armstrong and Eve
Ensler - along with some professional caregivers who offer rather predictable
perspectives - suggests that, for illuminating this vast, unwieldy topic,
Smith's journalistically catchall approach is not ideal.

Unlike some of her previous solo shows, such as the blistering "Twilight:
Los Angeles," about the '92 riots, and "Fires in the Mirror," which deconstructed race relations in Crown
Heights, Brooklyn, "Let Me Down Easy" unfolds as a noun looking for a verb: There's no provocative
core to this performance piece; Smith is unable to bind the numerous interviews she's conducted into a
freshly enlightening volume.

You get the sense, for example, that a conversation with actor and former heavyweight boxer Michael
Bentt about his injuries is inserted for no particularly compelling reason other than that Smith scored the
interview. (It's a problem that can also confront traditional reporters, when putting together a story with a
lot of famous sources.)

That's not to say that the production, directed by Leonard Foglia, is without its pleasures. Smith is so
accomplished at shape-shifting that you can admire what she attempts here from a purely technical
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angle. The physical detail she can weave into a snapshot impression remains immensely satisfying,
whether as Armstrong she's ministering to an itch in a fairly private place, or summoning an aged
relative recalling a hilarious final encounter with a dying sister.

The isolated parts of "Let Me Down Easy," though, are better than the whole, which never coalesces
around anything more specific than our communal groping for a better way to treat both the psyche and
body as death looms. Smith embodies oncologists and medical school deans and the relatives of cancer
patients to chronicle some of the failings of the health-care system, but the net is too wide to glean a
discernible thesis. As a result, the work - staged on a sparely furnished, mirrored set, with Smith adding
lab coats and other bits of costume to her white blouse and dark pinstriped slacks - is best when it is
addressing the big questions by simply and directly laughing at death.

Of special poignancy is a sequence in which she inhabits the body of TV film critic Joel Siegel, lying on
a couch and dying of cancer. In exaggerated close-up, a camera perched above projects Smith's
bespectacled face onto one of the mirrors, and we watch Smith's Siegel apply his exuberant intelligence
to his condition. He tells some examples of a category of joke that he calls "old man don't have long to
live." One of them, he says, was a favorite of George Burns:

"He was playing Las Vegas, and he's in his 90s. There's a knock on the door. It's this gorgeous chorus
girl who says to him, 'I've come to offer you super sex.' George Burns says, 'I'll take the soup.' "

The range and caliber of Smith's technique take a back seat at moments like this to the courage and
humor of her subjects. They are the interludes of "Let Me Down Easy" that feel most ardently alive. If
perhaps this gifted storyteller had narrowed her focus a bit, her humane exploration would go down
more coherently, too.

Let Me Down Easy Written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith. Directed by Leonard Foglia.
Set, Riccardo Hernandez; costumes, Ann Hould-Ward; lighting, Dan Ozminkowski, based on
original design by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; sound, Ryan Rumery; projections, Zachary
Borovay; original musical elements, Joshua Redman; dialect coach, Amy Stoller. About 1 hour 40
minutes. Through Feb. 13 at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St. SW. Visit www.arenastage.org or call
202-488-3300.

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