“Let Me Down Easy” runs hot and cold. Smith does not. She’s always on her game as a performer, but she’s at the mercy of the fluctuating appeal of her interview subjects and their observations. So, when her monologues fall flat, they crash with a thud, having no net of thematic connectedness to catch them. Fortunately, however, most are engaging, and some, including a woman’s experience with dialysis, are home runs.
As much journalist as actress, Anna Deavere Smith has an uncanny ability to document events by single-handedly recreating, with breathtaking precision, interviews with witnesses and/or participants. In the ’90s, she won back-to-back Drama Desk Awards for her works on riots in Crown Heights (“Fires in the Mirror”) and Los Angeles (“Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992”). In “Let Me Down Easy,” she continues to amaze with her ability to inhabit characters of every age, sex and race as she focuses on, uh ...
Ay, there’s the rub. “Let Me Down Easy” doesn’t really focus on any one thing. It’s touted as an exploration of “the power of the body, the price of health and the resilience of the spirit,” but what does that mean? More than anything, the play speaks of death, but it also deals with hospitals, doctors, competition, and the gap between rich and poor.
‘Let Me Down Easy’
Second Stage Theatre
307 W. 43rd St.
$70, 212-246-4422
www.2ST.com