The Real Twilight Saga: Breaking it Down
Along with Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror about the 1991 Crown Heights riot, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 was a game changer. Comprised of a series of monologues taken directly from interviews about the Rodney King beating, Smith weaves together various view points, including those of LAPD chief Daryl Gates, congresswoman Maxine Waters, actor Charlton Heston, a juror on the police brutality trial, and Reginald Denny, the white truck driver who was nearly pounded to death during the subsequent riots — and delivers them faithfully. The powerful technique, which has become known as “verbatim theater,” would never have taken hold if Smith’s penetrating eye had not been coupled with her uncanny ability to channel the voices and mannerisms, if not the very souls, of more than 40 real people. When the one-woman show opened on Broadway, it ran for an impressive 72 performances and was turned into one of PBS’s Great Performances. Sadly, with the imperative of the Black Lives Matter movement, it remains disturbingly vital — both in currency and necessity — more than two decades later.
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