Bartlet4America News Archive

'West Wing' actress urges students to listen

By JENNIFER OCHSTEIN
South Bend Tribune

CULVER -- Actress and playwright Anna Deveare Smith became another person while she was on stage at Culver Academy Wednesday.

Actually, she became several people.

Smith, known for her role as National Security Adviser Nancy McNally on the NBC series "The West Wing," showed students why her plays are two-time Obie Award winners.

"Fires in the Mirror," about riots between blacks and Jews in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and "Twilight: Los Angeles," about the Los Angeles race riots sparked by not guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the beating of motorist Rodney King, are two of Smith's Obie Award winners.

Smith told the students she is currently working on another play of her own called "Snapshots: Glimpses of America."

She explained to students she is learning about America by speaking the words of the people she interviewed.

Smith is technically a one-woman show in which she plays each of the characters she interviewed, talking with all of the nuances of an interviewee's voice and nearly taking on his or her persona.

She tells a story through her interview subjects' eyes. For example, Smith said she interviewed 300 people for "Twilight: Los Angeles" and played 26 of those people in the play.

But you'd have to see her to believe it.

Smith launched into likenesses of writer Studs Terkel; an anonymous Jewish woman she interviewed in Crown Heights; a Mexican man she interviewed in Los Angeles; a cowboy; and a jury member in the Rodney King beating case.

In a cracked voice, Smith gave her rendition of Terkel talking about defining moments in history.

As Terkel, Smith said there are no set defining moments in history, only a culmination of moments that have shaped America. Terkel had told Smith in his interview with her that the human touch is disappearing, and people are more and more interested in communications and not communication.

At the end of her program, she related Terkel's statement to a question asked by a student. The student asked how his generation could understand the power of the voice and essentially how to take time to listen to people.

Smith said that with greater access to technology, people have access to communications, but spend less time on communication.