Notes from the field: challenging the American justice system and the school-to-prison pipeline in Anna Deavere smith's verbatim theater

Abstract EN

The current paper aims to explore Anna Deavere Smith’s verbatim theater in investigating the American criminal justice system and the school-to-prison pipeline phenomenon as revealed in her most recent play Notes from the Field (2015).

The school-to-prison pipeline refers to unjust criminal justice system in America that leads to mass incarceration of poor and colored children and young people who are being expelled from schools and sent to juvenile centers for minor classroom infractions.

As a verbatim play, Notes from the Field extremely depends on testimonies and conducted interviews with people who are involved in real events.

The analysis of the play is basically grounded on the critical race theory from which the critical whiteness theory extends.

According to these two theories, the paper reaches the conclusion that ethnic minority people, especially African Americans, are more likely to be oppressed and experience class and racial inequities and traumatic events in a racially divided nation.

Moreover, the double oppression of African American women is going to be explored.

The analysis of the paper is also based on Augusto Boal’s “Forum Theatre,”1 that is mainly used to display the main plights of the oppressed people.

The paper concludes that Smith, as a skillful artist, deftly maintains the authenticity of the events she investigates by preserving the acute truth through an interesting and creative performance.