One voice expressing many voices on death and dying

Anna Deavere Smith's brilliant, moving new show

Let Me Down Easy

has come to town, presented by the Philadelphia Theatre Company. It's about death and dying, about patients and doctors, about bodies and minds, about courage and fear. Face the fact, Smith seems to be saying: Nobody gets out alive. Among the show's many surprises is that it's neither depressing nor tear-jerky. And it seems odd and funny that Smith plays a hospital administrator on Showtime's

Nurse Jackie

.

Smith's theatrical method depends on her famous and uncanny capacity to be, as she puts it, "a vessel, a repeater of words"; she's a chameleon. Her technique is to interview a wide variety of participants (more than 300 in this case) in a given social moment (the health-care debate), and then, crossing gender, racial, and generational boundaries, with minimal props and costumes and no makeup, speak their words for them, as them, to us.

The political as well as theatrical point of her huge project "On the Road: A Search for American Character," of which this play is a part, lies in the juncture between celebrating the individual by giving each his or her say, center stage, and celebrating the common humanity underscored by Smith's playing all the roles; she is both present and absent at the same time.

In the course of the evening we meet 20 people. Some are religious, some not. There's the doctor who, sticking by her abandoned patients in New Orleans after Katrina, discovered the class politics of medicine; the head of an orphanage in South Africa where children die of AIDS. There are professors, writers, oncologists; a monk, a minister, an affected but charming musicologist who tells us about Schubert. Some are people whose bodies are their lives (world-class athletes, a famous model, and a dancer). There is a lovely portrait of the late Joel Siegel, ABC's movie critic, and a deeply touching portrait of Smith's aunt.

The clever set (designed by Ricardo Hernandez) is backed by five large angled mirrors, so we see her from the back as well as the front, and we see ourselves seeing her. By the end of the show, the props and scraps of costumes she has put on and discarded - glasses, a shawl, white coat, a cane - litter the stage in a messy, lovely testimony to everybody who has been there.

Presented by the Philadelphia Theatre Company at Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St. Through April 10. Tickets: $46-$59. 215-985-0420 or philadelphiatheatrecompany.org.

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