Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Smith, Anna Deavere - Richard Hornby (review date Autumn 1993)

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Richard Hornby (review date Autumn 1993)

SOURCE: A review of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, in The Hudson Review, Vol. XLVI, No. 3, Autumn, 1993, pp. 534-35.

[In the following excerpt, Hornby discusses Smith's performance in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 and praises the play as a representative example of American regional theater.]

Twilight, like [Fires in the Mirror], deals with urban conflict, in this case the L.A. riots of April 1992. Smith interviewed hundreds of Los Angeleans involved in or affected by the riot (the latter group including almost everybody), and ended up performing 27 of them, including Reginald Denny, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, and a wide range of others, rich and poor, black, white, Latino, and Asian. Rodney King apparently declined to be included, but his Aunt, Angela King, was interviewed and made the cut, as did an anonymous Simi Valley juror.

As Smith began her performance, I...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works∗
3. Criticism
   1. Anna Deavere Smith with Steve Proffitt (interview date 11 July 1993)
   2. Richard Hornby (review date Autumn 1993)
   3. Jan Stuart (review date 24 March 1994)
   4. Michael Feingold (review date 5 April 1994)
   5. Robert Brustein (review date 2 May 1994)
   6. Sean Mitchell (review date 12 June 1994)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright