Shaking the Foundations

President Bill Clinton was at the Mark Taper Forum over the weekend, happy and barefoot, his long brown hair pulled back behind his head.

Former President George Bush was there too, sporting dreadlocks and nursing a bottle of orange soda. Former senior Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos made a couple of appearances--one as a tall, lanky man, and another as a hulking man with a shaved head. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and “60 Minutes” co-anchor Mike Wallace got big laughs.

Clinton and numerous other politicians, journalists, celebrities and unknowns were depicted--flatteringly and unflatteringly--during the opening performances of “House Arrest: An Introgression,” a combination play and discussion session about the American presidency, written and directed by the always provocative playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith.

The drama is being billed as a “work-in-progress,” a compressed version of the production that had originally been scheduled to run at the Taper this spring. Critics have been asked not to review the production until the final performances; the run ends next Sunday.

“House Arrest” is Smith’s frequently surreal and nonlinear examination of the office of the president and the media, targeting the Clinton administration while also taking aim at Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. The production is on the same stage where Smith caused a stir in 1993 with “Twilight: Los Angeles 1992,” her look at the Los Angeles riots.

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The road to unveiling this version of “House Arrest” has been an ongoing challenge for Smith.

Originally scheduled as a full production as part of the Taper’s season, to be staged during May and June, the plan changed when it became clear that Smith could not fully form her work while the real-life drama of President Clinton’s impeachment, the Monica Lewinsky scandal and other events were still ongoing news stories.

A version of “House Arrest” was presented at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in November 1997, before the Lewinsky scandal broke. Reviews were mixed, with critics claiming that the piece seemed incomplete. Smith then began substantial rewrites for the Taper production, but each new draft was offset by a new eruption at the White House.

As she did in “Twilight,” Smith employed verbatim excerpts from interviews she had conducted with various real-life figures. Almost 300 politicians, journalists, commentators, celebrities and other prominent figures were interviewed for the project.

But while “Twilight” was performed by Smith as a solo piece with very little staging, the first act of “House Arrest” was unveiled with more elaborate staging, and a racially mixed cast of 13, including Smith, that works against gender and race in playing numerous roles.

The first act of “House Arrest,” which ran roughly two hours, not only attempts to draw parallels between the various presidencies and the media, but also focuses on several other topics, including church burnings in the South, racism and Smith’s own recent frightening confrontation with gun-waving police, who suspected her of breaking into a Washington townhouse where she was staying.

The play featured several gospel numbers, choreography by Donald Byrd and repeated showings of the Abraham Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. At various points, the action was stopped for a strip search, where an actor playing a security guard ordered cast members to strip down to their underwear. Smith appears mostly as herself, detailing her journey in writing “House Arrest.” She also portrays Clinton and her mentor, author Studs Terkel, in lengthy monologues.

Production Includes Audience Discussion

The second half of the production is being designed as a town-hall-style meeting with the audience interacting with cast members, civic leaders and activists. The discussions are designed to revolve around race, power, gender, politics, the press and public versus private morality and other issues.

Smith is labeling this portion “the introgression,” which she described as “a biological term describing what happens when species leave natural habitats and move onto others’ turf.” She said she wanted to be informed by the audience, just as the audience may have gained insight from the dramatic piece.

At matinee and evening performances on Saturday, the dramatic portion of “House Arrest” appeared to have more impact with audiences than the “introgression.”

Interviewed during intermission, several theatergoers said they were impressed by Smith’s vision, and her fresh approach to subject matter that had been excessively picked over by the media.

“I’ve seen Anna’s work on PBS, and I think this is really outstanding and different,” said Debbie Mack, an executive with Bank of America. “I wondered what she could do to make this interesting, and she really did it.”

Thirteen-year-old Lucy Campos said she felt the play made good points about Jefferson and Lincoln: “I see them in a different light. I think they are racists.”

However, dozens of audience members did not return for the second half of both performances, and there were walkouts during the discussions, which for these performances were moderated by Joe Hicks, executive director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission (different moderators are scheduled for each performance). Saturday’s sessions were largely unfocused, at times combative, and often veered into issues not connected with the play.

During the afternoon session, one audience member complained that there were no Latinos or Asians portrayed in the work, even though Smith had conducted interviews with them. Another theatergoer asked about the significance of an onstage television monitor tuned to a golf tournament during the play. No response was given. In the evening, Arianna Huffington was asked by Hicks what she thought about the way in which she had been portrayed in the drama; Huffington immediately took the discussion off course, however, complaining about Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji’s welcome to the U.S., despite China’s abuses of human rights.

A Chance to Engage in Debating Issues

In separate post-show interviews, Smith and Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson expressed satisfaction with the performances.

“I’ve never gotten this many thank yous from an audience,” Davidson said, following Saturday evening’s performance. “People are hungry for a chance to feel a part of the world, and to have dialogue about issues of consequence. This whole thing has been a risk for us, but I believe it’s been very worthwhile.” He added that Act 2 was as much a work-in-progress as Act 1.

Smith said some audience members told her they felt bombarded by the dizzying images and felt they would have to see the play again.

“One woman came to me and said, ‘It’s like seeing six car crashes at one time,’ ” said Smith by phone on Sunday. “You see it, and you keep going.”

Smith said she and the cast only had three weeks of rehearsal, and that although there is much material jammed into “House Arrest,” there is much more that she omitted.

“I had to leave a lot of stuff out, and it presents much less of what I had to say,” she said.

As for the future of “House Arrest” Smith said she would have to determine that at the end of its run. “I want to take in more information from the audience. This is complex, and I want to absorb more.”