LET ME DOWN EASY (BROAD STAGE): 93% – SWEET

Anna Deavere Smith in "Let Me Down Easy" at the Broad Stage. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus.

SWEET
Anna Deavere Smith, the acclaimed writer-performer of documentary collages, makes a similar connection in her vitally important, wide-ranging and ultimately very moving solo piece “Let Me Down Easy,” which opened Friday at the Lyceum Stage in San Diego. Taking up the hot-button issue of our broken healthcare system, she is naturally led to an appraisal of the human body, both its astonishing capacities and its intractable limits, and to the societal forces — economic, racial and religious — that alter our relationship to mortality.
Charles McNulty – LA Times

SWEET
But in the end, perhaps this slight ambiguity with transitions serves a larger purpose than we might perhaps realize. Although Let Me Down Easy is a series of narratives brought together from an extensive project that spanned over a course of a decade, in the end, these stories encompass a bigger story of humanity that we can all contribute to. Let Me Down Easy isn’t a story about death, but it is certainly a story about life and grace. It is obvious that a strong life-force runs throughout the play, giving it a vibrancy that screams that IT’S ALIVE and that WE ARE ALIVE.
My Nguyen – Socal.com

SWEET
What’s most powerful in Deavere Smith’s performance is how fully she inhabits each role. Each character has a different posture, habits, expressions and speech pattern. And the show flows magically from scene to scene, balancing effortlessly between the humorous, the moving and the bittersweet.
Pam Kragen – North County Times

SWEET
Go!
Jeff Smith – San Diego Reader

SWEET
He was right to do so. Ms. Smith is a national treasure, and her performance demands to be seen.
Bill Eadie – SanDiego.com

SWEET
Anyone who loves theatre—or cares about their health—should trek down to San Diego Rep’s intimate Lyceum stage between now and May 15 to see Anna Deavere Smith in “Let Me Down Easy.” The show, in which the acclaimed solo performer deftly portrays 20 individuals of both genders and various ethnicities, is an in-depth look at the vulnerability and resilience of the human body, and the health care crisis. It’s also a master class for any actor worth their salt.
Jordan Young – LA Examiner

SWEET
For some, health care and death are overwhelming and terrifying subjects – Smith makes the subjects accessible by allowing us to ponder our own mortality with humor and grace.
Tony Frankel – Stage and Cinema

BITTERSWEET
But because of the inherent nature of a collection of performed snippets of interviews from people who don’t necessarily share a common context – except for the fact that they and we are all going to die – the material never coalesces into any kind of an eye-opening revelation.
Don Shirley – LA Stage Watch

SWEET
I can’t recommend the show (running through July 30) highly enough. Smith and her characters provide a powerfully moving case for what Linda Singer suspected might be true: the one thing we humans may have most in common is our certain, yet unknown end.
Brian – Out West Arts

SWEET
Very few things can be called universal in the human experience — but just as death is one certainty, so is life. Let Me Down Easy connects fragmentary, disparate human experiences into a beautiful patchwork of common humanity. Smith has pointed out some of the ripped seams. Now who is going to fix them?
Sarah Taylor Ellis – Compositions on Theatre

SWEET
This intimate evening of universal tales is transportive and inspiring, funny and wistful, memorably created by a performer of immense skill and heart.
Dany Margolies – Backstage

SWEET
Via Leonard Foglia’s direction, Smith intersperses her pieces expertly. The hopeful, the bitter, the doomed and the calloused stand by side in all their human glory or vanity. “Let me Down Easy” does no such thing. Here’s hoping Anna Deavere Smith remains forever as tough as her subjects.
Evan Henerson – LA Examiner

BITTERSWEET
Other critics have noted that Smith doesn’t judge her characters but allows the audience to judge instead. Not sure that’s true. She brings a twist of mockery, of caricature, to this ever-so-fragile genre. It’s a slight betrayal of trust, a subtle diminishment of this work’s possibilities, and of its importance.
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly

SWEET
We are told, beforehand, by a projected message on the stage, that the words spoken by Ms Smith are verbatim from her interviews. They are so much so that every nuance, every pause, everything that occurred during that interview is woven into her act. Her change of characters move so smoothly from one to another, it is like pure magic, mesmerizing her audience, particularly since each one is so diverse.
Carol Kaufman Segal – Reviewplays

LET ME DOWN EASY
Previously at the Lyceum Stage
Now at the Broad Stage
1310 11th St., Santa Monica
Tues-Fri 7:30 pm; Sat 2 and 7:30 pm; Sun 2 pm. Ends Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tickets: 310-434-3200
Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes