Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 at Rep Stage

Police Killings of Young Black Men Viewed Through The Lens of Eternity: KILL MOVE PARADISE at REP Stage

While there are four characters in Kill Move Paradise, and they are endowed with names and hints at backstories, their individual identities don't matter much. They are unified more than distinguished, engaged as they are in a common enterprise, chorally addressing the same issues. Specifically, they are all African American men, all (apparently) killed by police gunfire, who are still coming to terms with the ongoing trauma attendant upon being born black and therefore vulnerable to what happened to them in today's America. And, having landed in an afterlife of some kind, they are required now to come to awareness of their present circumstances, and apparently to heal from the inner wounds their earthly lives have inflicted.

BWW Review: TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992 at Rep Stage in Columbia - A Stunning Production

Paige Hernandez directs the Anna Deavere Smith reveting play that stars the multi-talented Danielle A. Drakes.

BWW Review: Words Fail, But Humanity May Prevail in TWILIGHT, LOS ANGELES at the REP

Most of the characters fail to use words properly to convey directly what is important to them or us. But as I have said, the underlying problem is larger. It is a mismatch of moral paradigms. The possibility of rationally settling the underlying issues by a dialogue among the participants is hard to conceive. This play seems instead to be more about making people grasp, at a gut level, the speakers' personhood,

Rep Stage To Tackle Issues Of Race And Class In Anna Deavere Smith's TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992

Rep Stage, the professional regional theatre in residence at Howard Community College (HCC), continues its 26th season with "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," written by Anna Deavere Smith and directed by Paige Hernandez. Anna Deavere Smith's stunning play explores the people who experienced the Los Angeles riots and the devastating human impact of that event. From nine months of interviews with more than 200 people, Smith chose voices that best reflect the diversity and tension of a city in turmoil, all portrayed by one actress in a tour-de-force performance. 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.