“I have two choices when I wake up. I can feel good or I can feel bad.”
Thus spake Anna Deveare Smith in Let Me Down Easy, her riveting, moving, and funny one-woman show playing through December 6 at the Second Stage Theatre.
Smith was quoting one of the show’s many characters, Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas who was then battling cancer, but was her usual I-Did-Everything-The-Boys-Did-But-In-High-Heels feisty self.
And as a fan of Anna, Ann, and the concept that no matter what the circumstances are, you get to choose how you think about it, I needed to see this show. The play reminds us that the only choice is to decide to feel good, because however the day turns out, it will be better than it would have been if you had chosen to feel bad.
The interconnecting themes of this play—death and dying, the health care system or lack of it, facing the mortality of those we love, and worst of all, accepting our own inevitable ends—give you a choice, too. You can dwell on the negative: Why do these things, especially death itself, happen at all? Or, you can take the positive view: life is short but can be oh so sweet. And if it went on forever, you couldn’t appreciate its preciousness.
I attended this play with a dear friend who had just lost her father. (“Lost” is just one of the ridiculous euphemisms we use because we can’t bear to say it straight out: her father died.) And I can assure you that the drinks we had after the show went down easy. Real easy. The play had us all shook up, not in the Elvis Presley jukebox musical sense, you will have guessed, but in the let’s-talk-about-this-stuff sense. And talk we did.
About the performance, which was stellar (I have no idea how the incredible Smith does this day after day, much less twice on Wednesday). And about the play itself, which is unusual in structure: a series of monologues using the actual words of diverse people Smith has interviewed, ranging from a rodeo bull rider to a supermodel to a Buddhist Monk, all of which Smith strings together seamlessly, connected by the theme of literally life and death.
Personally, I related to some of the pieces more than others, especially to the humorous characters like the movie critic Joel Siegel, who, while undergoing treatment for cancer, pulls off a few great one-liners. He tells the immortal George Burns story about the time the comedian, then in his late nineties, has a gorgeous showgirl come into his dressing room to ask him if he wants super sex. To which Burns responds: “I’ll take the soup.” That’s the only punch line I’m going to reveal, but I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes we just need the soup.
And the Eve Ensler segment was hysterical. Long ago, I vowed not to go to plays with the names of body parts or functions in their titles (Puppetry of the Penis, Urinetown, Menopause, The Musical), but I see how wrong I was, at least about the Vagina Monologues. Here, Smith channels Ensler, who pinpoints the exact moment that Tina Turner really, really discovers her vagina (after Ike, of course), the implication being that we should all go forth (or south) should do the same. Put that on your To-Do List, girlfriends.
The Lauren Hutton segment was a little strange, but it did raise a very interesting point: through Revlon, Hutton was sent to a great doctor who in turn referred her to other great doctors, so that she ended up with an incredible medical network. This has happened to some of us mere mortals (me included, and it saved my life), but even we fortunate few are aware that under the current so-called healthcare system, you’re more likely to be unlucky, vulnerable to all the worst that modern medicine can perpetuate.
One of the segments “A Sheet Around My Daughter,” was about a woman who witnessed her daughter endure a horribly botched dialysis session, and so refused to have the procedure herself even though she needed it and would almost certainly die without it.
But the rodeo rider, a Republican if I ever saw one, got lucky. He was sent to a VA hospital after being gored by a bull even though he wasn’t a veteran (it was an emergency) and waxes poetic about being well treated and charged only a flat fee of $1200 for all his injuries, H’mm. This Medicare For All might just work, pardner.
The most personal piece was that of Smith’s aunt, Lorraine Coleman, a retired teacher who recalls that, as one of a family of eight children who invariably wore hand-me-down shoes, her heart’s desire was to have white shoes and pink socks. We so get it.
Well, my heart’s desire is to see more of this kind of play on Broadway. God knows, there’s a place for the Shreks and the Momma Mias, and I have nothing against escapist entertainment. But please, Anna, keep giving us pieces like this that make us laugh and cry, and force us to have actual conversations over our martinis.
Second Stage Theatre
307 West 43rd Street
212-246-4422
Conceived, Written & Performed by
Anna Deavere Smith
You’re also invited the join the conversation line: www.letmedowneasy.com/conversation
Top photo by Mary Ellen Mark, other photos by Joan Marcus
Visit Pat Fortunato’s website, www.i-cant-believe-im-not-bitter.com
