Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Signature’s potent revisal of Anna Deavere Smith’s TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992 remains mandatory viewing

• By drediman
• November 2, 2021
• No Comments

Last night, Signature Theatre Company’s Off-Broadway revival – actually, more of a revisal – of Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 opened at the company’s Irene Diamond Stage. When Ms. Smith first performed the seminal play in 1993, it marked an important evolution in documentary theater by fearlessly investigating America’s simmering but under-exposed racial and socio-economic tensions. The work is essentially a tapestry of interviews – performed verbatim – that prismatically document the civil and racial unrest in Los Angeles during the early to mid 1990s (as evidenced by the media’s coverage of the stories of Rodney King, Reginald Denny, Paul Parker, etc.).

Originally written to be performed as a solo show, Ms. Smith has, for Signature’s current production, re-conceived and heavily revised the piece for an ensemble cast of five. As a result, Ms. Smith re-directs the audience’s focus from the spectacular achievement of her own chameleonic performance to the real matter at hand – the slippery topic of racial justice in America. As before, the difficult issue continues to be manifested by the “Rashomon”-like quality of the interviews, which invariably (and with great discipline) sympathize with the respective interviewee’s point of view. By having an additional four bodies onstage, Ms. Smiths has been given the opportunity to expand the theatrical scope of her work, which she takes advantage of (e.g., just witness the ensemble work in “A Dinner Party That Never Happened” and “AA Meeting”).

Signature’s potent production has been directed by Taibi Magar, who cleanly and elegantly stages the play on a mostly bare platform set against mobile screens onto which provocative real life footage is projected. Although nothing can replace the breathtaking experience of watching Ms. Smith perform the play singlehandedly, the current production is urgently and skillfully acted by each of the five accomplished company members (who themselves play multiple roles). Additionally, by recognizing racial differences in its casting, the staging strives for a level of authenticity that was unattainable in the work’s previous solo show format. Given all that’s happened over the course of the last two years, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 – for better or worse – remains mandatory viewing.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992
Off-Broadway, Play
Signature Theatre Company
2 hours, 30 minutes (including an intermission)
Through November 14