Anna Deavere Smith is one of the essential chroniclers of overlooked and undervalued American experiences.
If you’re unfamiliar with Anna Deavere Smith’s work, it might help to know what you’re in for before you dive in. Notes from the Field is a one-performer show. Which… I know. One-person shows can elicit such an involuntarily visceral reaction of scorn and disdain that some people might just put the concept in their “life’s too short” list and move on. (For the record, I like a good one-person show. I’ve seen some very good ones, and I’ve seen some very bottom-of-the-barrel-experimental-“art piece” ones.)
But. Smith’s plays are different. She pioneered what is known as “verbatim theatre” (or “documentary theatre,” depending on your undergrad professor). Her verbatim shows (the most well-known perhaps being Fires in the Mirror, about the 1991 Crown Heights riots) consist of interviews from real people, which she then performs on stage, imitating the vocal and physical characteristics of the interviewees as closely as possible. Which is why I didn’t refer to Smith’s work as a one-woman or one-person show. It’s not. It’s a show performed by one woman who brings us the words, experiences, and wisdom of the people we need to hear from the most: those whose voices are largely ignored by the world at large.
Notes from the Field focuses on the school-to-prison pipeline and how young people living in poverty are entrapped by a system that seems designed to prevent them from succeeding in the world. We hear from prisoners, activists, educators, and politicians about the lack of resources and systematic injustices that keep the poor poor and the disadvantaged without chances.
Watching one woman perform all these interviews, so vividly inhabiting her subject’s bodies and voices and minds, gives the show a certain power, a sort of entrancing magic spell that wouldn’t exist if we were watching the recorded interviews in a more traditional documentary. It gives the sense of a personal point-of-view. It gives these lived experiences the unity of an artist’s voice with Something to Say. We feel her desperate call to action that is so desperately needed if we are going to save our youth and our country from the callous doctrine of Social Darwinism, the remnants of imperialist thought and action that birthed the current social structure of the United States.
Notes from the Field is not a film adaptation of the show per se. It’s a live performance in front of an audience that has been filmed (like a standup special, although Notes from the Field is about the furthest thing from standup in the theatrical family I can think of). This is a wise decision on the part of the creative team, especially compared to the George C. Wolfe adaptation for PBS of Smith’s 1992 play Fires in the Mirror, which was shot more traditionally: on sets and soundstages, with cuts and close-ups, but, most crucially, without an audience. Whereas this filmed version of Notes has the essential sense of verisimilitude crucial to documentary-style work. Smith’s performances and the accompanying multi-media elements (videos of protest, police brutality, of events referenced by characters, underline the themes of the piece and provide context for some of the interviews) working seamlessly together to educate us, break our hearts, and inspire us to work for the betterment of our country and humankind.
(As a side note, I recommend Ava DuVernay’s 13th as a companion piece to Notes. Just be sure to have a box of tissues handy.)
AVAILABLE SAT, FEB 24 AT 8:00 PM ET ON HBO GO AND HBO NOW