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Twilight by Anna Deavere Smith

Book

Twilight

Los Angeles, 1992

Anna Deavere Smith

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · March 15, 1994

Reading lane: African American Plays

From an acclaimed playwright comes "an American masterpiece" ( Newsweek ) about the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

At a Glance

Why This Clicks

Many Voices, One City

Documentary theater brings the human stakes of the 1992 Los Angeles riots into sharp focus.

Come here for

  • A chorus of sharply distinct firsthand voices
  • Race, class, and policing examined through language and lived experience

Expect

  • Interview-based theater shaped from more than two hundred conversations
  • A stark, searching encounter with a city in turmoil

Book Details

Authors
Anna Deavere Smith
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published
March 15, 1994
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
African American Plays · Playwriting
Reading lane
African American Plays

Affinity

Publisher Categories

  • American Plays

  • African American Plays

  • Plays by Women

About This Book

From an acclaimed playwright comes "an American masterpiece" ( Newsweek ) about the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Twilight is a stunning work of "documentary theater" that explores the devastating human impact of the five days of riots following the Rodney King verdict. From nine months of interviews with more than two hundred people, Smith has chosen the voices that best reflect the diversity and tension of a city in turmoil: a disabled Korean man, a white male Hollywood talent a...

Read full description

From an acclaimed playwright comes "an American masterpiece" ( Newsweek ) about the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Twilight is a stunning work of "documentary theater" that explores the devastating human impact of the five days of riots following the Rodney King verdict. From nine months of interviews with more than two hundred people, Smith has chosen the voices that best reflect the diversity and tension of a city in turmoil: a disabled Korean man, a white male Hollywood talent agent, a Panamanian immigrant mother, a teenage black gang member, a macho Mexican-American artist, Rodney King's aunt, beaten truck driver Reginald Denny, former Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates, and other witnesses, participants, and victims. A work that goes directly to the heart of the issues of race and class, Twilight ruthlessly probes the language and the lives of its subjects, offering stark insight into the complex and pressing social, economic, and political issues that fueled the flames in the wake of the Rodney King verdict and ignited a conversation about policing and race that continues today.

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