House Arrest and Piano: Two Plays

From the award-winning actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, two teeming, pungent cross-sections of the American experience.

In the provocative and at times bitterly funny play House Arrest, Smith examines the relationships between a succession of American presidents and their observers in and out of the press. Arcing from Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to Jefferson and Sally Hemings and alive with the voices of such real-life figures as Ed Bradley, George Stephanopoulos, Anita Hill, and Abraham Lincoln, the result is a priceless examination of the intersection of public power and private life.

In Piano, Smith casts her gaze back a century as she follows the tangled lines of race, sex, and exploitation in a prosperous Cuban household on the eve of the Spanish-American War. Deftly and suspensefully, Smith tells a story of ruptured allegiances and ramifying deceptions in which no one—master or servant, friend or enemy—is what he or she pretends to be. Together these two plays are further proof that Anna Deavere Smith is one of the most searing and revelatory voices in the American theater.

From the award-winning actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, two teeming, pungent cross-sections of the American experience.

In the provocative and at times bitterly funny play House Arrest, Smith examines the relationships between a succession of American presidents and their observers in and out of the press. Arcing from Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to Jefferson and Sally Hemings and alive with the voices of such real-life figures as Ed Bradley, George Stephanopoulos, Anita Hill, and Abraham Lincoln, the result is a priceless examination of the intersection of public power and private life.

In Piano, Smith casts her gaze back a century as she follows the tangled lines of race, sex, and exploitation in a prosperous Cuban household on the eve of the Spanish-American War. Deftly and suspensefully, Smith tells a story of ruptured allegiances and ramifying deceptions in which no one—master or servant, friend or enemy—is what he or she pretends to be. Together these two plays are further proof that Anna Deavere Smith is one of the most searing and revelatory voices in the American theater.

Daniel Levinson - KLIATT

For those who appreciate Deveare's documentary-based history plays (most famously, Twilight Los Angeles, about the Rodney King riots), this book might appeal on two counts. House Arrest follows her well-known documentary format, weaving together actual text—this time to, as the play's subtitle asserts, "search for American character in and around the White House, past and present." Using the actual words of Ken Burns, Gary Hart, Peggy Noonan, Thomas Jefferson, George Stephanopolous and others, she examines political image and reality through the lens of presidents and those who observe them. A fascinating piece for students to read and perform. The second piece gives fans a different look at Smith's work. This is a more conventional play, with invented characters, but it still deals with some of her most significant themes of race, gender and history. It is set at the time of the Spanish-American war, as Smith wanted a time and place where she could believably place people of all different races in one room. It's interesting, but has less immediate pedagogical use than House Arrest. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2004, Random House, Anchor, 281p., Ages 15 to adult.

Anna Deavere Smith is an actor, a teacher, a playwright, and the creator of an acclaimed series of one-woman plays based on her interviews with diverse voices from communities in crisis. She has won two Obie Awards, two Tony nominations for her play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, and a MacArthur Fellowship, and she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play Fires in the Mirror. She has had roles in the films Philadelphia, An American President, and The Human Stain, and she has worked in television on The Practice, Presidio Med, and The West Wing. She is the founder and director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue and is a University Professor at New York University, with an appointment in the Tisch School of the Arts and an affiliation with the School of Law.