By Darlene Donloe
On March 3, 1991, the severe beating of Rodney King, a Black man, by four white members of the Los Angeles Police Department was caught on video.
The incident would not only be the catalyst for nationwide police reform, a year later, on April 29, 1992, but the acquittal of the four officers involved in the beating also sparked the Los Angeles uprising.
Playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith wrote a show about the beating and the subsequent sequence of events that turned Los Angeles upside down and increased the strain on racial relations. To enhance the show, she brilliantly used the voices of the hundreds of people she interviewed for the one-woman production she performed. In the show, she embodied 40 different characters of various ethnicities, ages, races, and genders.
The play was called ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’. At the time it was a solo show that was originally commissioned by Center Theatre Group – making its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in May 1993.
The show enjoyed a good run including a production at The Public Theater followed by a Broadway run and two Tony nominations. There was also a national tour mounted at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and a film produced by Smith and others in partnership with PBS.
Smith’s reimagined ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’ returned home to the Mark Taper Forum on March 15, 2023, this time with an impressive ensemble cast.
In this incarnation, five diverse actors take the stage - portraying several of the 320 interviews conducted by Smith with politicians, activists, police, jurors, shopkeepers, and countless other Los Angelenos including now Congresswoman Maxine Waters and former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates.
All of the dialogue in the show is spoken by real people and is verbatim from the interviews – unless otherwise noted.
The show, which explores the five days following the Rodney King verdict and how the uprising affected Angelenos, delves into the long-simmering tensions that set the stage for the L.A. uprising and explore the community as a whole.
The stories in this show go beyond black and white. It’s about the human spirit, which goes beyond any color lines.
As intense as the show is with its themes of racial injustice and police brutality, Smith interjects moments of humor, which allows the medicine to go down a little lighter.
It’s a heavy play, which shows the long, torturous moments that King endured the vicious blows of the LAPD.
It brings up painful memories and powerful feelings of anger and frustration at man’s inhumanity to man.
On this particular night, the mostly-white audience gasped and said, “My God,” as if watching the beating for the first time.
It also shows footage of the moment Soon Ja Du, a Korean store owner shot 15-year-old Latasha Harlins in the head because she thought the teen was trying to steal some orange juice. The footage does show the teen punching the store owner in the face but it also shows her walking away – leaving the store – only to be shot in the back of the head.
And then there’s the raw footage of the attack on Reginald Denny, the white truck driver who was pulled from his vehicle by a group of Black men and fiercely beaten.
All of the persuasive videos make for an uncomfortable, disturbing night of theater.
Although it’s a challenging and complicated show to ingest, ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’ isn’t to be missed. It continues to beckon with its in-your-face truths.
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| Anna Deavere Smith |
When the verdict was read in the Rodney King case, Smith, named playwright in residence at the Signature Theater in 2019, was in New York at the Public Theater for the premiere of her documentary-style drama “Fires in the Mirror.” Smith said she is convinced that the unrest in Los Angeles is the reason her one-woman play about the 1991 riots in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was a success.
It’s 30 years after the Rodney King incident and, unfortunately, nothing has changed. Black men are still being beaten by police, and quite disturbingly sometimes by Black police officers.
To her credit, Smith, a longtime NYU professor, doesn’t offer any answers. She doesn’t side with any of the situations. Instead, she leaves it up to the audience to come up with its own conclusions. It’s a thought-provoking piece. Watching a reimagined interpretation may give some audience members a different perspective on what they originally saw, heard, or believed.
Director Gregg T. Daniel’s steady directing hand imparts a touching, compelling, and passionate show.
The cast seamlessly shifts from one character to another, which isn’t always an easy achievement.
‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,’ conceived, written, and revised by Anna Deavere Smith, and directed by Gregg T. Daniel, stars Lisa Renee Pitts, Jeanne Sakata, Hugo Armstrong, Lovensky Jean-Baptiste, and Sabina Zuniga Varela.
On the DONLOE SCALE: D (don’t bother), O (oh, no), N (needs work), L (likable), O (oh, yes), E (excellent) ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’ gets an E (excellent).
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.
‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,’ The Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, 8 p.m., Tuesday-Friday; 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., through April 9; $35-$105. They are available through CenterTheatreGroup.org, Audience Services at (213) 628-2772.
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