1W (flexible casting): diversity and doubleness in Anna Deavere Smith's On the Road: A Search for American Character

 
 
 
 

1W (flexible casting): diversity and doubleness in Anna Deavere Smith's On the Road: A Search for American Character

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dc.contributor.advisor Reilly, Joy Harriman en_US
dc.contributor.author Seamon, Mark Jeffrey en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2008-07-07T19:07:37Z
dc.date.available 2008-07-07T19:07:37Z
dc.date.created 2005 en_US
dc.date.issued 2008-07-07T19:07:37Z
dc.identifier.uri http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1117221328 en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2374.OX/6568
dc.description This dissertation examines playwright and performer Anna Deavere Smith’s critically acclaimed series, On the Road: A Search for American Character. Focusing on the project’s thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth installments, Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities, Twilight, Los Angeles, 1992, and House Arrest: A Search for American Character In and Around the White House, Past and Present, respectively, this study demonstrates how diversity and doubleness serve as the foundation of Smith’s dramaturgical investigation into the relationship between language and character. Smith focuses on communities experiencing socio-political duress and persons whose voices have gone largely unheard within those communities. In collecting, editing, and performing verbatim excerpts from interviews with white, African American, Korean, Latino, and Jewish women and men, Smith’s interest in cultural diversity plays a crucial role in fulfilling the mission of On the Road: to make connections between the seemingly disconnected and spark productive discussion about matters of race. Characters in Smith’s dramas regularly reveal a sense of double consciousness, to quote W.E.B. Du Bois’s influential concept, grappling with their awareness of themselves as racial minorities and how their identities are viewed as “other” by the dominant culture. Furthermore, many events upon which the plays are based are shown to have double meanings and be open to a wide range of interpretation. The same holds true for the imperfect but poetic language employed by characters to describe these events. By presenting a panoply of voices and exploring events from multiple perspectives, Smith investigates how and why disagreements, tensions, failures to understand, and inabilities to communicate have plagued the diverse populations of Crown Heights, Los Angeles, and the United States. This dissertation also explores how Smith’s multiple identities as African American, woman, interviewer, playwright, and actor complicate her staged representations of character and are essential to reading her work in production. Finally, it examines the plays’ production histories and critical response, weighing the consequences of how critics did and did not take into account arguably the most important character of all in On the Road: Smith herself. en_US
dc.format application/pdf en_US
dc.format 287p. en_US
dc.rights unrestricted en_US
dc.rights Copyright and permissions information available at the source archive en_US
dc.subject Anna Deavere Smith en_US
dc.subject Female Playwrights en_US
dc.subject Theatre en_US
dc.subject Documentary Theatre en_US
dc.subject Solo Performance en_US
dc.subject American Identity en_US
dc.subject Diversity en_US
dc.subject Race en_US
dc.subject Crown Heights Riots en_US
dc.subject Los Angeles Riots en_US
dc.title 1W (flexible casting): diversity and doubleness in Anna Deavere Smith's On the Road: A Search for American Character en_US
dc.type Electronic Thesis or Dissertation en_US
dc.degree.name PhD en_US
dc.degree.level doctoral en_US
dc.degree.discipline Theatre en_US
dc.degree.grantor Ohio State University en_US
dc.contributor.publisher Ohio State University / OhioLINK en_US

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