Most of the dreams for racial equality that Anna Deavere Smith had in the years following her graduation from college have not been realized, and the conversations across racial lines that the civil rights movement inspired have since "collapsed," the award-winning actress and playwright told a packed audience at the School of Medicine's ninth annual observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Yet, calling herself a "prisoner of hope," Smith used her acting skills to put on a performance designed to help create anew that conversation and bridge the "chasm" between the races, she says.
In her performance, titled "Snapshots: Glimpses of America in Change," Smith portrayed six real-life people as they offer monologues on controversial issues in America. Through these "snapshots made out of words," the actress said she hopes to "document some of [America's] more challenging and difficult moments." Her material is based on actual conversations she had with the people she portrays, whose speech and mannerisms the actress deftly imitated in her show.
Her "characters" included Smith's comic Aunt Esther, who recounts her anger at some youths who tried to steal her pocketbook; George C. Wolf, director of the Broadway hit "Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk," who talks about "whiteness" and "blackness" and theater reviewers' muddling of those topics; and writer Studs Turkel, who laments society's "moral slippage" and describes a train ride with passengers who seem lacking in humanity. Smith's other "snapshots" were of Harvard scholar Cornell West offering thoughts on African Americans' shared feelings of sadness and hope; a Korean-American woman whose grocery store was burned down during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, who admits to confused feelings about blacks after the violence she witnessed; and a juror named Maria in the Rodney King civil rights trial in federal court, who tells how she and the other jurors -- after repeated failures to even discuss the evidence in the case -- managed to put aside their personal prejudices in life and toward each other to reach what they believe was a just verdict.
Smith, who has won two Obie Awards and two Tony nominations for plays in her series called "On the Road: A Search for the American Character," said she has been on a quest to find "American character" in a society that has become "a more multifaceted identity."
"A multifaceted identity which is integrated can be exciting because of its texture and depth," she told her audience. "Unfortunately, we tend to experience a fractured, divided identity."
She choose to call the monologues in her show "snapshots" because people have become "suspicious" of words, Smith said, while "pictures can speak what words cannot." Yet through her snapshots, Smith said, she seeks to "put a few words here and a few words there that can ultimately be strung together to be that bridge which can help us communicate a little better.
"The bridge I'm looking for will never be as firm and as glorious as the Brooklyn Bridge or as beautiful as the Golden Gate Bridge," she added. "The bridge I'm looking for is very simple architecturally because it only has one purpose and that is to take people across chasms, to bring people in contact with one another."
Building bridges was indeed a theme of the medical school's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. At the opening of the event, third-year medical student Sherri Sandifer sang Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Dr. Forrester A. Lee, assistant dean for multicultural affairs, and Dr. David A. Kessler , dean of the medical school, reminded the audience of the work that remained undone at the time of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death and of that which needs to be accomplished today.
"[The] mountain top King climbed still remains a distant pinnacle for some," noted Dean Kessler.
During a question-and-answer session after her performance, Smith noted that King gave Americans an opportunity "to test the spirit and humanness of mankind." While the laws that have been created as a result of his work have helped achieve greater racial equity, "we haven't taken care of the spirit," said Smith. "What are we going to do about that?"
By Susan Gonzalez