THEATER

Sarah Jones

 Actor-playwright

Arising out of the spoken-word scene, Sarah Jones, a 30-year-old theatrical hybrid (imagine Anna Deavere Smith crossed with John Leguizamo), makes labels like “playwright” and “actor” seem far too confining for her protean gifts.

A solo performance artist who gives life to multicultural multitudes, she slips out of pigeonholes, both personal and professional, with the ease of a blindfolded Houdini escaping from an underwater safe. Her Obie-winning show, “Bridge & Tunnel,” lands on Broadway in January, allowing a wider audience to judge whether her genius lies more in composing dramatic monologues (written in the varying cadences of an immigrant-rich subway line) or delivering them with pitch-perfect transformational command.

Meryl Streep, her champion and sometimes producer, has exhorted students of acting to closely study Jones’ mastery of what can only be described as soul mimicry. Embodying the contestants of a New York City poetry slam (the lineup ranges from a b-boy rapper to a kvetching Russian Jewish grandma), Jones surfs the urban transit to revel in the differences disguising our sameness.