Anna Deavere Smith Brings Humanity To L.A Tragedy
-------------- THEATER REVIEW --------------
"Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992." Created and performed by Anna Deavere Smith. Directed by Sharon Ott. Intiman Theatre, Seattle Center. Tuesday-Sunday through May 19. 269-1900.
At one point in "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," the tour de force docu-play now at Intiman Theatre, Anna Deavere Smith conjures up a roundtable discussion on race relations with former Black Panther Party chief Elaine Brown, U.S. senator Bill Bradley, Chicano artist Rudy Salas and restaurateur Alice Waters participating.
Note: Though quoted verbatim, these people have never met. And all of them are played, with small changes of costume and uncanny alterations of voice and posture, by one chameleonic black actress.
That this disparate circle of concerned citizens is unlikely ever to share such a discussion, except when summoned en masse through the muse of the ingenious Smith, is one of the ironies that makes "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992" such a disturbing, engrossing and meaningful experience.
A virtuoso one-woman town meeting of wide scope and stunning impact, Deavere's prismatic account of the riots that rocked Los Angeles four years ago should enthrall anyone who wonders how we fractious Americans can ever, in Rodney King's phrase, "all get along."
King was not among the 200 people Smith interviewed to create "Twilight," or one of the 40 she impersonates and quotes in the show. But King turns up memorably on video, in a replay of the brutal 1991 beating he received from Los Angeles policemen after being stopped on a traffic violation.
That shocker video, and the initial acquittal of the officers on criminal charges in 1992, triggered a furious spell of rioting, looting and arson in South Central Los Angeles. Smith's impressionistic collage of commentary by Los Angelenos of various classes, races and philosophies depicts a city destined to explode - and an embattled society suspended in a metaphorical "twilight" zone between day and night, past and future, fragmentation and cohesion.
Acclaimed in L.A. and later on Broadway, "Twilight" offers a remarkably balanced back-to-back representation of black and Korean residents, legislators and journalists, riot victims and riot assailants, cops and community activists.
One hears their strident, imploring, funny, despairing, forgiving voices more clearly somehow when channeled through this single, virtuoso performer. And Smith obviously wants us to listen rather than judge.
She cannot resist letting ex-L.A. police chief Darryl Gates indict himself with lame alibis for his fatal inattention to the riots. And she apes the vocal mannerisms of a white real-estate agent and a black accountant so emphatically, these angry women become comic relief.
Yet Smith has a genius for projecting the humanity in each person, as well as the poet-philosopher. She also deftly challenges stereotypes, be they of angry black street toughs or successful Korean shop owners. Even her quotes from Ivy League scholar Cornel West spin your head: West's discourse linking Anton Chekhov with John Coltrane is a leapfrogging marvel.
Concisely restaged recently by Sharon Ott for Berkeley Repertory Theatre, "Twilight" has also been substantially revised - not always for the better. Smith deleted characters, added others and cut valuable contextual information about Los Angeles. And the new "Conversation About Race That Never Happened" sequence tries out an awkward and unnecessary device.
Nonetheless "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," like Smith's earlier "Fires in the Mirror," is a profoundly affecting and catalytic theatrical event. In a democracy riven with tensions and distrust, Smith has devised a whole new way for us to gather in a room and confront what is tearing us apart.