Anna Deveare Smith is one of my favorite American artists (and not just because she was on The West Wing.) She is a gifted actress, author and playwright, but even more importantly, her "documentary theater" style of writing and performing displays a respect for the diversity of voice and opinion that makes up the American mosaic. (See her TEDTalk which is a piece from her show "On the Road: A Search for American Character for an example.)

So it should come as no surprise that she has the ability to capture the range of the debate on health care in this country in an OpEd piece in today’s New York Times. Here is her introduction:

Over the last few years, in preparation for a new play, I interviewed doctors, patients and healers about the human body, its resilience and its vulnerability. Although our conversations were not primarily about the health care debate, they do reveal many of the feelings and thoughts of the people in the audience President Obama will address tonight.

The unruliness that now animates the conversation stems from our passions, hopes and discomforts — about life, death, who should (or should not) take care of us and whom we should take care of. The president’s audience has a million and one perspectives, some of them clumping together like blood platelets under one political roof or another. The following excerpts (not all of which are in my play) reflect the range of views.

At a time when civility and rational discourse seem to be at an all-time low, her ability to listen so intently and bring across the myriad voices of the debate without irony and without judgment is so important. We all can learn from her ability to listen for the humanity in our voices.

Go read.

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Tags: anna_deveare_smith, health_care