Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Smith, Anna Deavere - Sean Mitchell (review date 12 June 1994)

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Sean Mitchell (review date 12 June 1994)

SOURCE: "The Tangle over Twilight," in Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1994, pp. 7, 48.

[In the following excerpt, Mitchell discusses the controversy over whether Twilight should be characterized as journalism or art.]

Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman play about the riots, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, now struggling to survive on Broadway after six weeks despite rapturous reviews and standing ovations, could gain additional longevity and respect if it wins either of the two major Tony Awards for which it is nominated tonight in New York.

Since its prominent premiere [in 1993] at the Mark Taper Forum, which commissioned it, Twilight has been both hailed as a sensational theatrical event and bedeviled by disagreement in the theater community and press as to how it should be measured—whether it is truly a work of the imagination and therefore pure dramatic art, or...

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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