Twilight
Los Angeles, 1992
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · March 15, 1994
From an acclaimed playwright comes "an American masterpiece" (Newsweek) about the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
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- Who it’s for
- Documentary theater brings the human stakes of the 1992 Los Angeles riots into sharp focus.
- Themes
- Race and class, Human impact of the Los Angeles riots, Policing and race
- Genres
- American Plays, Race & Ethnic Relations, Race & Discrimination
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Start with this bookAbout 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.
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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.
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
Where it sits
| American Plays | 47% |
|---|---|
| Race & Ethnic Relations | 37% |
| Race & Discrimination | 21% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- American Plays
- African American Plays
- Plays by Women
- Authors
- Anna Deavere Smith
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- March 15, 1994
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Race and class · Human impact of the Los Angeles riots · Policing and race
- Reading lane
- American Plays