Anna Deavere Smith and director Gregg T. Daniel revisit the writer/performer's groundbreaking solo documentary theater piece, retrofitted for a cast of five, in a new production at the Mark Taper Forum.
Inside the black box theater at a community arts center in the heart of Watts, a small cluster of people gather around tables, reliving the 1992 Los Angeles riots through the haunting voices of those who experienced it.
Now “Twilight” is coming home — back to the Mark Taper Forum, where it began. But this time without Smith playing a spectrum of characters ranging from Rep. Maxine Waters to a Korean liquor store owner to one of the LAPD officers charged in King’s beating. “As we know, especially from George Floyd or Michael Brown, there are these very brief windows of time where we are concerned about race in this country,” Smith says, recalling recent incidents of Black men killed by police. “That was this time.”at the hands of Memphis officers, Smith remains adamant that “Twilight” does not take sides, while acknowledging that the police were wrong in their actions against King.
Smith recalls performing the show and seeing the differing responses of people seated next to each other. “They were laughing at something that somebody else was crying about,” she says. “To me, that’s success.”Review: Anna Deavere Smith shares her ‘Notes From the Field’ After COVID delays, the new production finally opened in New York, then Boston’s A.C.T., demonstrating the enduring power of the play. But “Twilight” may resonate more deeply in its hometown of Los Angeles, where racial tension remains indelibly imprinted in the city’s memory. With that in mind,, then-associate artistic director at CTG, made clear to Smith from the outset that this production “has got to be of L.A.
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