One of the first things we learn in “Notes from the Field” — in a projection on the curtain — is that nearly six million voting-age people can’t vote in the 2016 presidential election because of state felon disenfranchisement laws.
Anna Deavere Smith portrays 17 disparate characters with her usual dazzling virtuosity. It is her most diffuse and digressive work so far, less of a subject than an argument—that in the United States there is a school to prison “pipeline” for poor people and people of color.
Click on any photograph by Joan Marcus to see it enlarged
From “Brother”
CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS
U.S. Representative (D-GA 5th District) Washington, D.C.
From “The Shakura Story”
NIYA KENNY
Student, Spring Valley High School Columbia, SC
From “Breaking the Box”
JAMAL-HARRISON BRYANT
Pastor and Founder of
Empowerment Temple AME Church
Spoken at the funeral of Freddie Gray, April 27, 2015
