"Let Me Down Easy": Theater Review

Location Info

Map

Berkeley Repertory's Roda Stage

2025 Addison (at Shattuck)
Berkeley, CA 94704

Category: Performing Arts Venues

Region: Downtown Berkeley

Photos

0 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare	0

Details

Through July 10 at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison (at Shattuck), Berkeley. Tickets are $17-$93; 510-647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

Related Content

• More Theater Reviews
  July 6, 2011
• Seeing Life on the Road to Death
  June 15, 2011
• More Theater Reviews
  June 29, 2011
• Ke11y’s Cove
  November 2, 2011
• Lance Armstrong Doping Investigation: Leak Shows 60 Minutes Expose Was Right
  June 2, 2011

More About

• Lance Armstrong
• Anna Deavere Smith
• Leonard Foglia
• TV Dramas
• TV Comedies

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Artopia Newsletter: Keeping the pulse of SF's unique cultural experiences this highlights all things Art. Whether Performance, Fashion, Design, or more, this is your one stop shop. Get info on upcoming shows, events, promotions, giveaways & much more. Coming soon.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Anna Deavere Smith is a revelation on the Berkeley Rep stage. She's an accomplished actress with lead roles in West Wing and Nurse Jackie, and profoundly skilled storyteller and mimic. She spent a decade interviewing hundreds of people (a rodeo rider, a prizefighter, a preacher, a New Orleans nurse, even Lance Armstrong and Lauren Hutton) about their relationships to their bodies and spirits as they age and get closer to death. With the help of director Leonard Foglia, Smith uses her unique performance style to channel their voices verbatim with careful attention to gesture and cadence, telling a story, in her words, "about life as much as death, about a search for grace." Close your eyes and hear more than 20 characters speaking intimately about their journeys toward the grave, including Armstrong confessing how his fear of death drives his cycling, Joel Siegal cracking jokes on his deathbed, and a Buddhist monk pondering how we go about dying and what might be next. It's stunning, beautiful, and transcendent.