"None of the tragedies in Smith's documentary work are exactly news. We've read about them, protested them, and anguished over their seeming intractability...Indeed, 'Notes' theme is this tangible sense of a burden pressing down, one that too many are suffering under every day. But Smith's powerful style of living journalism uses the collective, cathartic nature of the theater to move us from despair toward hope. She shows us beautifully how we might—and that we must—share the weight."
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"Each emerges as a distinct individual, evoked by Smith primarily through her voice and bearing and physical expression...Smith again and again finds moments of uplift and calls to action for an audience that might be otherwise inclined to absorb its lessons with head shakes and a sense of futility. That resistance to despair may be this powerful playwright and performer’s greatest gift."
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"It’s hard to imagine a more urgent and evocative work of theatre than 'Notes From the Field,' Anna Deavere Smith’s latest masterful documentary performance...Bracing though this vision of the big picture may be, Smith’s approach is human in scale...Under the seamless direction of Leonard Foglia, the production also makes powerful use of video and projections...She doesn’t indulge in caricatures or do impressions, but has an unparalleled performance style all her own."
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"An impressive and often moving roster of witnesses but while the stories they tell are compelling, they fail to add up to a sustaining narrative or to offer any fresh insights...Missing for me were the subtleties and complexities Smith offered in her earlier shows…The show ends on a 'Kumbaya' moment that doesn't seem earned or, given the current political climate, likely."
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"In a remarkable scene in Smith’s transfixing one-woman show, she channels a Baltimore minister...Without attempting an actor-like impersonation, Smith had so precisely captured a personal voice, its identifying tone and rhythm, that she took us on the speaker’s journey. It’s the kind of magic she achieves again and again during the evening...Smith is so good in conveying the distinctive personalities of her people, and the urgency of what they have to say, that our attention seldom drifts."
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"Anna Deavere Smith’s latest might be flawed, but there’s enough energy and anger to make her exploration of racially motivated imprisonment a standout...This is one of Smith’s particular gifts, to disappear into the people she plays, to take an assemblage of interviews and recorded talks, and bring them to astonishing and visceral life onstage. She finds a distinct voice for each...It is less divisive and less cohesive than it might be. Here, too many of the voices are of the same opinion."
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"With little more than a change of jacket or a shift in her vocal rhythm, the virtuoso theater medium and social-science reporter morphs into indelible characters. If anything, her portrayals feel even more distilled, nuanced and complete than the ones she epically recreated through the decades...Leonard Foglia has expertly directed with screens of pertinent video and more production values than usual."
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"Some of the moments were painful to relive. Much attention is devoted to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. The sermon at Gray’s funeral is one of the most powerful sections of the evening...Although there is an attempt to shed a ray of hope at the end of the evening, I did not find it convincing or comforting...Some of the dialects and intonations came across as artificial...The material lacked a clear arc and some of the excerpts should have been trimmed."
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