Cranston, RI – The Artists' Exchange announces upcoming performances of the Black Box Theatre Production of "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," a play by Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-nominated American actress and playwright, Anna Deavere Smith.
The 1992 LA riots, six days of mass looting, assault, arson and murder, serve as the play's subject. Through a series of monologues edited from actual interviews conducted by Smith, "Twilight" offers a kaleidoscopic and sympathetic rendering of differing viewpoints of people directly and indirectly affected by the riots, examining racial prejudice as the central focus, as the riots were triggered by the acquittal of four police officers involved in the infamous beating of Rodney King after a high-speed chase led by the black motorist.
Offering perspectives ranging from that of Reginald Denney, a white truck driver and victim of a violent riot-related beating to Cornel West, noted scholar, historian and Princeton Professor of African American Studies, Smith allows us the opportunity to examine the LA riots from a variety of angles, encouraging us to try to build a more complete picture of the actual incidents, as well as that of race relations as a whole.
With the recent election of the first African American president in America's history as a backdrop to the production, it is Artistic Director Rich Morra's hope that we might look back to these events as we continue to examine our nation's progress in terms of race relations.
Footage of the Rodney King beating and the riots will be projected behind the players in a multimedia production of Smith's play, placing the first hand accounts and commentary within their original context.
"Twilight" was originally produced as a one woman show that earned Smith the 1994 Tony Award nomination for Best Actress and Best Play. Morra has chosen to produce the play with an ensemble cast, in some cases with actors whose actual races differ from those of the characters they are playing. In reference to this choice of casting, Smith once said, "If only a man can speak for a man, a woman for a woman, a black person for all black people, then we once again inhibit the spirit of theater, which lives in the bridge that makes unlikely aspects seem connected. The bridge doesn't make them the same; it merely displays how two unlikely aspects are related. These relationships of the unlikely, these connections of things that don't fit together are crucial to American theater and culture if theater and culture plan to help us assemble our obvious differences."
"Twilight," as described by one of Smith's interview subjects, represents the transition between identifying with one's own race, and stepping into the light, or the wisdom of understanding others. It is Morra's aim that resurfacing this unique documentary theatre production will encourage audiences to do just that.
"Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992" will be performed in The Black Box Theatre at The Artists' Exchange on March 19-21, 26-28. All shows will take place at 7pm. Reservations are $15 and can be made by calling 401.490.9475.
(This is not an RIFC Production)