{"id":19942,"date":"2015-07-22T20:24:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T03:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=19942"},"modified":"2015-07-22T20:27:17","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T03:27:17","slug":"unique-berkeley-rep-show-faces-racial-conflicts-but-may-miss-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/unique-berkeley-rep-show-faces-racial-conflicts-but-may-miss-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"Unique Berkeley Rep show faces racial conflicts but may miss mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 3]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Anna Deavere Smith portrays Johns Hopkins research Professor Robert Balfanz and many other characters in \u201cNotes from the Field.\u201d Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com.<\/p><\/div>\n

Anna Deavere Smith beat the odds \u2014 and became a theatrical powerhouse.<\/p>\n

Despite being an African-American, despite writing one-woman shows with multivarious characters all played by Anna Deavere Smith, despite staging controversial in-your-face portraits of racial conflict.<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s battling the odds again.<\/p>\n

But is likely to fail.<\/p>\n

In the unique Berkeley Rep\u2019s \u201cNotes from the Field: Doing Time in Education,\u201d she takes on the entire American educational system and its undermining attitude toward poor people of color.<\/p>\n

It simply may be too wide a target.<\/p>\n

The experimental piece \u2014 part drama, part audience participation \u2014 covers dense terrain and poses tons of questions.<\/p>\n

But it provides only amorphous answers.<\/p>\n

I kept waiting for a specificity that never came.<\/p>\n

Part of Smith\u2019s \u201cPipeline Project,\u201d which is seeking to alter school-to-prison practices she contends have decimated the future of a generation, \u201cNotes\u201d is based on 150 interviews she conducted.<\/p>\n

In sub-divided sections of an 80-minute first act, she impersonates a riot videographer, an Oakland mentor, a Stockton councilman, a Stanford shrink, UCLA and Johns Hopkins professors, a protestor from Baltimore (where the playwright-performer was born), a Native American ex-con, an emotional support counselor and a high school principal \u2014 plus a Philadelphia judge who cried when sentencing a young man because society also was guilty.<\/p>\n

She recreates the individuals\u2019 stories precisely as told to her.<\/p>\n

That, according to a National Endowment for the Humanities website profile, means \u201ccomplete with false starts, coughs, laughter, and so on\u2026\u2018If they said \u2018um\u2019\u2026I don\u2019t take the \u2018um\u2019 out.\u2019<\/p>\n

As in the 64-year-old\u2019s previous shows, Smith\u2019s performance is phenomenally good.<\/p>\n

Although her olive drab jacket\/shirt and dark pants stay put, she changes personalities by altering facial expressions, verbal pace and timbre \u2014 and footwear.<\/p>\n

Projected film clips of cops beating blacks and of rioting underline the painful pleas of her portrayal of youngsters being forced into the criminal justice system, of white officials who find few alternatives.<\/p>\n

I found it depressing.<\/p>\n

But not as disheartening as the ostensibly novel audience breakout sessions about which in a pre-show briefing Susan Medak, Rep managing director, said, \u201cYou are<\/em> the second act.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mostly white 23-member group I attended \u2014 one of 20 clusters in all \u2014 just didn\u2019t come alive.<\/p>\n

Its discussion was buried in idealistic but impractical notions, though the writing pads we\u2019d been given carried the printed motto, \u201cThe change starts with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants proffered suggestions to \u201cmove beyond our comfort zone,\u201d \u201cfight racism\u201d and \u201cstop police brutality\u201d \u2014 without explaining how.<\/p>\n

I had the distinct sense I was at a rally that couldn\u2019t gel.<\/p>\n

Smith, who labeled this special presentation \u201cThe California Chapter\u201d and a \u201cwork in progress,\u201d punctuates all the heaviness with humor.<\/p>\n

The opening night audience chuckled accordingly.<\/p>\n

If a bit uncomfortably.<\/p>\n

It also appeared to dismiss Marcus Shelby\u2019s plucky but sometimes sorrowful jazz bass accompaniment.<\/p>\n

Smith, who\u2019s probably best known for her TV roles on \u201cNurse Jackie\u201d and \u201cThe West Wing,\u201d initially gained fame through two early \u201890s documentary theater inventions, \u201cFires in the Mirror\u201d and \u201cTwilight: Los Angeles, 1992.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first, dealing with the Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, earned her a Pulitzer Prize nomination.<\/p>\n

The second, about the Rodney King verdict aftermath, won two Tony nods.<\/p>\n

\u201cNotes\u201d is in effect a variation of the theme.<\/p>\n

Smith, who won a MacArthur fellowship for blending theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and \u201cintimate reverie,\u201d believes she\u2019s now delivered \u201ca chance to reimagine and recreate a new war on poverty. Education is a crucial part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a dramatic coda, she utilizes circa 1970 quotes from black writer James Baldwin that the problem is \u201cthe children and their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that much, I guess, has changed.<\/p>\n

Yet 45 years have passed.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s UCLA character adds a thought in \u201cNotes.\u201d The \u201cbiggest problem in our country,\u201d he proclaims, \u201cis indifference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anna Deavere Smith\u2019s latest magnum opus may be many things, but uncaring isn\u2019t any of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNotes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, the California Chapter\u201d plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre\u2018s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through Aug. 2. Night performances, 8 p.m. Sundays and Tuesdays through Fridays, 7 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Matinees, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $25 to $89, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact Woody Weingarten at www.vitalitypress.com\/<\/a> or voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 3] Anna Deavere Smith beat the odds \u2014 and became a theatrical powerhouse. Despite being an African-American, despite writing one-woman shows with multivarious characters all played by Anna…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"