Let Me Down Easy

by Anna Deavere Smith

Compiled from dozens of interviews conducted by the author, Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy is a bracing, tender, melancholy, and triumphant exploration of death and dying. The speakers Smith inhabits include healthcare professionals, theologians, artists, athletes, and activists. They speak of the body as a battleground, a tool, a weapon, a joy, a burden. Smith’s great gift has always been her ability to break down her subjects’ defenses and present them in their full, complicated beauty. Whether channeling Lance Armstrong, Lauren Hutton, Peter Gomes, or others who are not in the public eye, Smith reminds us again and again that in learning to die we learn to live.

Genres: Plays

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

Anna Deavere Smith (born September 18, 1950) is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist in residence at the Center for American Progress. Smith is widely known for her roles as National Security Advisor Nancy McNally in The West Wing and as Hospital Administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. She is a recipient of The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2013), one of the richest prizes in the American arts with a remuneration of $300,000.

In 2009 Smith published her first book, Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics. In 2006 she released another, Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts-For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind.

As a dramatist Smith was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for Fires in the Mirror which won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. She was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1994 for Twilight: one for Best Actress and another for Best Play. The play won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance and a Theatre World Award.

Smith was one of the 1996 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "genius grant." She also won a 2006 Fletcher Foundation Fellowship for her contribution to civil rights issues as well as a 2008 Matrix Award from the New York Women in Communications, Inc. In 2009 she won a Fellow Award in Theater Arts from United States Artists.

She has received honorary degrees from Spelman College, Arcadia University, Bates College, Smith College, Skidmore College, Macalester College, Occidental College, Pratt Institute, Holy Cross College,[disambiguation needed] Haverford College, Wesleyan University, School of Visual Arts, Northwestern University, Colgate University, California State University Sacramento, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wheelock College, Williams College, and the Cooper Union.

The United Solo Theatre Festival board awarded her with uAward for outstanding solo performer during the inaugural edition in November 2010.

In 2013, she received the 2012 National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.

Reviews

[Aaron Piccirillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

“And you know, there was this heavy sense of resignation.”

Absolutely beautiful! Such a simple yet impactful show about death, sickness, and health care and the everyday struggles of it. Super interesting how the entire show is conducted from verbatim interviews and adds a very personal human touch to the story.

[bella issa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to know everything about how a play like this is created, wow. To have so many people all tell the same stories.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, you can always count on Smith to crack open a topic from unexpected angles. Here the topic is Death: How do we confront it, court it, risk it, acknowledge it, and be humbled by it? Smith steers away from one-line wisdom and chooses instead to shapeshift into an array of viewpoints that nod to the blues (James H. Cone), daredevilry (Elizabeth Streb), and self-importance (Lance Armstrong) then culminate with a repeated message about the importance of being present, of being a witness. Lovely. And unexpectedly enlivening.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Anna Deavere Smith's work. These portraits are vivid, sometimes hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking. The only change I would have wanted was a little bit more of a connection between the people or some kind of understanding of how she chose the people she did to interview because the choices seemed both a little bit clustered and a little bit random.

[Hanna Smaglis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish there was more of a narrative or through line, but love the death talk

[Rene · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5 read for class

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book and it’s message. It didn’t catch me but I get the point of it.

[Laura Hamlet · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gold mine of dialogue and character.