Reexamine, Reason, Reflect
By Gregg T. Daniel
I recall standing on a rooftop in April 1992 where I was privy to a 360-degree view of Los Angeles. In any direction I turned, I witnessed black smoke rising up from a multitude of locations. The catalyst for the civic unrest was the announcement of the acquittal of four Police Officers by a Simi Valley Jury in the 1992 beating of an African American man, Rodney King. The verdict plunged Los Angeles into approximately six days of social conflict.
Anna Deavere Smith chose to listen to the voices of those Los Angeles denizens and create an unusual, uniquely compelling, work of theatre. In reexamining the play, I knew I wanted to align my vision with Smith’s undaunted gaze in interviewing her subjects. Let them tell their own story, offer them the space to speak their own truths, if one listens closely, their words have the ability to uplift, confuse, proclaim, challenge, and paint a portrait of who they are in relation to a city they often find themselves at odds with.
What does Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 reveal about who we were as a nation during the unrest of 1992 and where we currently are as a society? Clearly, the work can be viewed through a historical lens; however, it is a history which continues to doggedly repeat itself as we continue to bear witness to acts of horrifying brutality and violence perpetrated on Black and Brown bodies.
In opening up the play to a team of five diverse actors, issues and themes of portraying race, gender, class, and ethnicity collide. In keeping with the integrity of Smith’s chameleon-like approach seen thirty years earlier inhabiting the play’s multitude of characters, I reasoned it was the company’s obligation to be respectful of the various individuals and communities presented here while acknowledging the inadequacy of representing “everyone.” Representation matters. One of the challenges of directing this new version of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, is choosing five actors to represent our city. My goal in the casting process was to build an ensemble of excellent local actors who could bring the people, stories, and cultures represented in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 to vivid life, using both their lived experience and artistic skill. I am aware that the actors will be representing genders, ages, abilities, perspectives, and cultures other than their own. I believe the actors I have chosen are capable of doing this with humility, respect, artistry, and empathy. Our shared purpose is in telling this vital story with boldness, attentiveness and care.
Los Angeles continues to be a city which holds immense contradictions, poverty, pain, and suffering, boundless creativity, affluence, and reward.
Smith offers no easy solutions, no epiphanic moments in the work, just a fair, stark representation of individuals caught in a historic moment in our city. I hope you consider where you stand in relation to these events, look back but also look forward as a member of a community of people who must continue to find a way to share our city together.
