House Arrest and Piano: Two Plays

Contains two plays by Anna Deavere Smith that explore the American experience from various points of view. House arrest examines the relationships between a succession of American presidents and their observers in and out of the press. Arcing from Clinton and Monical Lewinsky to Jefferson and Sally Hemings and alive with the voices of such real-life figures as Ed Bradley, George Stephanopoulos, Anita Hill, and Abraham Lincoln, the result is an examination of the intersection of public power and private life. In Piano, Smith casts her gaze back a century to 1898 as she follows the tangled lines of race, sex, and exploitation in a prosperous Cuban household on the eve of the Spanish-American War.