Sometimes the topic of a play is so big and important, a brief description falls short. Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field, now onstage at TimeLine Theatre, lands squarely in that category.
The play premiered in 2015 with Smith performing a sculpted collection of interviews on the topic of the school-to-prison pipeline. This refers almost exclusively to Americans of color. From an ex-con dishwasher at Disney Hall to the woman who removed the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s capitol to the late Representative John Lewis, Smith tracks racial reality and violence in the U.S. public education system.
Ironically, on the day of TimeLine’s press opening, the Chicago Tribune ran an editorial titled “Cops in school?” that challenged the Chicago Board of Education’s recent decision to remove School Resource Officers. That contemporary issue gives us a relevant lens to view a scene like “The Shakara Story,” in which a white officer throws a Black high school student to the ground and handcuffs her for refusing to give up her cellphone. When a classmate named Niya Kenny videotapes the incident—a clip that later explodes on national media—Niya, who at age 18 could be charged as an adult, ends up spending a day in jail.
Niya’s recounting of the incident is harrowing but even more so because the scene comes after we’ve heard from Kevin Moore, another impromptu videographer of brutality. Moore is the Baltimore deli worker who recorded the 2015 arrest of Freddie Gray during which police officers broke his spine and crushed his larynx. Moore asks incredulously, “You put leg shackles on a man that can barely walk to the paddy wagon?” He notes that beat officers don’t generally keep leg shackles in their patrol cars and that they’re more commonly used to transport prisoners from one compound to another or to court. Why on earth does Moore know so much about leg shackles? The young man’s world is far too marinated in law enforcement.
Director Mikael Burke divides Notes From the Field among three actors: Mildred Marie Langford, Shariba Rivers and Adhana Reid. The three, listed only as Actor 1, 2 and 3 in the program, inhabit the people of Notes from the Field with such veracity and variety that each one jumps to life. Every scene makes a lasting impression but some of the standouts include Langford as activist lawyer Bryan Stevenson, Reid as Niya Kenny and Rivers as the Rev. Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant, who delivers a stemwinder sermon at Freddie Gray’s funeral.
In a nod to Smith’s practice of performing barefoot—part of her career-long quest to “walk in the words” of the people she interviews—the three actors go barefoot on the dirt-strewn floor of Eleanor Kahn’s set. The set also includes a metal ring suspended from above and illuminated (by lighting designer Eric Watkins) with a subtle but penetrating institutional glare. Further creating the school-to-prison milieu, projection designer Rasean Davonte Johnson displays actual photos and videos onto a curved piece of concrete. They remind us that these are not characters, these are real people. Racial reality in America cannot be adequately described here. Notes from the Field just needs to be seen.
Notes from the Field continues through March 24 at TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave. Tickets are $52 (student discount available) for performances on Wednesday through Sunday. Running time is 2½ hours with an intermission.
For more information on this and other plays, see theatreinchicago.com.
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