Anna Deavere Smith is another solo performer who collects testimonies from a variety of people to use to create performances. “Using the stories people tell her, Anna Deavere Smith performs and interprets the tough issue of race at the height of racial conflagration” (Guinier cited in Bonney, 2000, p.177). She created a performance called Fires in the Mirror which addresses the Crown Heights Riots. Okeowo explains, “The three-day riots had been ignited by the accidental death of a Gavin Cato, a seven-year-old black boy who was run over by a Hasidic Jewish driver. Rumours that the death was deliberate and the driver was drunk (both untrue), along with the fact that a Hatzolah ambulance crew did not bring Cato to the hospital before a city ambulance could (there were different accounts of why), exacerbated the existing tension” (2011, p.1).
Anna moves between characters like a chameleon. She forms in to people of different genders, race, culture, age and social class. Similar to the work of Rhodessa Jones previously described in this blog, Anna Deavere Smith uses only their words, depicted in their language conveying their personal thoughts and feelings. Presenting these real people including eye witness accounts of the incident can be chilling, it’s a highly emotional and moving piece, particularly when the piece concludes with Anna Deavere Smith’s rendition of Gavin Cato’s father. The views expressed in the piece can be controversial, as they are the set individuals opinions and feelings of those affected by the riots. Also it is hard for the viewer to tell the difference between true and false accounts of the incident. Arguments for both sides of the conflict are well presented; Anna Deavere Smith’s piece is unbiased allowing the audience to form their own opinions.
Additionally, in Anna Deavere Smith’s performance of Twilight: Los Angeles “she both exposed and then attempted to stitch together the wound left by the riots in Los Angeles following the acquittal of the police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King. She brings these events to life after the fact, and then breathes new life into them. She is a fluent translator who inhabits the “moments when speech fails,” and then takes us there too, to the “very moments which defy definition and description” (Guinier cited in Bonney, 2000, p.177).
Upon discovery of Anna Deavere Smith, I considered her style of performance and how I could apply that to my own solo performance. Although I could have used the testimonies to create characters on stage, I realised that my creation would be fictional. As all my accounts are from various websites I do not know the appearance and mannerisms and voice of those whose stories I have taken. Anna Deavere Smith studies and mimics those she interviews, so I would be unable to use her process successfully.
Read more about the Crown Heights Riots here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/08/crown-heights-twenty-years-after-the-riots.html#ixzz2PsucAJrQ
Please check out the film adaptation of Fires in the Mirror on YouTube by following these links:
Fires in the Mirror Part 1 (Film based on original stage play)
Works Cited
Bonney, Jo e.d. (2000) Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century, New York: Theatre Communications Group.
Demarcations (2011) Fires in the Mirror, Part One to Six, Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkrUJny0CE (accessed: 12 April 2013).
Okeowo, Alexis (2011) Crown Heights, Twenty Years After the Riots, Online: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/08/crown-heights-twenty-years-after-the-riots.html#ixzz2PsucAJrQ (accessed: 12 April 2013)