Anna Deavere Smith
Short Interview
As a student of Chaffey Community College, it is exciting to say that this school-year’s One Book One College book is actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith’s play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (Anchor, 1994). Twilight interstices interviews from individuals from many different backgrounds — of different ethnicity, gender, class, age, and profession — following the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Twilight is an example of Deavere Smith’s skillfully developed style of “documentary theater” where interviewees’ words are used verbatim as a series of dialogues that explore the impact of a current event. In Twilight the interviews explore the human impact of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Although Deavere Smith interviewed about two-hundred people, only about twenty-five interviews were able to be included in the theatrical version of Twilight due to time constraints. However, the book of Twilight used for Chaffey’s One Book One College includes additional interviews that were not included in the theatrical versions.
About Anna Deavere Smith
It is important to note that Deavere Smith is no stranger to these issues of race. For instance, she was born and lived in Baltimore, Maryland (where the 2015 Baltimore protests took place) for the beginning of her life. She explains in one interview with Big Think:
Well, I was born in an all-black hospital, so that gives you a sense already that there was still such a thing as that — and I suppose there still are in some places. So the town was, for all intents and purposes, a segregated town. My mother was in labor for five days. I’m not sure if I had been in a different hospital… if she had been in a different hospital… if we had been in a different hospital if there would have been a different kind of situation, but I sort of came down the birth canal and turned back up. So I sort of have the feeling like maybe I saw something so I decided to maybe take just a little bit longer coming along. And I went to an elementary school that was also, at the time, for colored children, Negro children. And a lot happened by the time it was time to go to junior high, and I went to a predominantly Jewish junior high and a predominantly white high school. But that wouldn’t have happened, for example, if I was five years older.
She also discusses (in two other videos with Big Think) the generosity of the colored community with whom she grew up in segregated Baltimore and her perspective on the “truth” of art.
About growing up in segregated Baltimore Deavere Smith discusses, specifically, Ms. Johnson who had a significant effect on Deavere Smith’s interest in storytelling. She says:
She had a huge effect on me. She was a great storyteller, and I used to ask her to tell me stories all the time. When kids were out playing — well, we didn’t have softball in the street, but — our version of softball in the back alley, I would most likely be found talking to Ms. Johnson, and asking her to tell me often the same stories over and over again. And, so, I think that my desire to hear a story, which came from when I was very young, is still with me now and had a huge influence on me.
Deavere Smith also explains whether or not she thinks of herself as a seeker of truth through art. She explains:
So I don’t know if I am a seeker of truth in terms of, like, “Is someone telling the truth?” I think I’m really a student of… I’m a student of human beings. Yeah, I think that’s a better way of putting it than I’m a seeker of truth. I’m a student of human beings and their motivations and what causes them to do what they say they’re gonna do or what gets in the way of that.
Twilight is especially relevant considering the long-time and recent issues concerning polices’ use of excessive force on unarmed citizens of color. For instance, there have been the recent incidents with Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray (Quah 1). Moreover, the last incident with Freddie Gray culminated into the 2015 Baltimore protests, and the situation shares similar causes and effects with the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Both situations have complex causes and effects, and Deavere Smith’s use of the “documentary theater” style acknowledges and examines the complexity from different perspectives in retrospect of the 1992 riots.
More about Anna Deavere Smith
Deavere Smith is also well-known for her roles as Nancy McNally on the television series The West Wing (2000–06) and Gloria Akalitus on Nurse Jackie (2009–15).
She is also University Professor at New York University (NYU) in the Tisch School of the Arts and is the founder of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue (IACD) at NYU, which aspires to support artists whose work addresses pressing national and international issues. Deavere Smith is also the recipient of multiple awards, including the National Humanities Medal that was presented to her by President Obama in 2013, the MacArthur Award, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, two Tony nominations, and two Obies. Her play Fires in the Mirror (1998) was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, and she has been awarded numerous honorary degrees from universities such as Yale University, Wesleyan, and Northwestern University, among others.
Furthermore, it is not an overstatement to say that Deavere Smith’s work meets its aspirations to effectively emphasize both reason and empathy. She is an artist who uses her talent(s) to address pressing societal issues and portray the narratives of complex characters.
Deavere Smith was generous enough to succinctly answer nine short-interview questions via Email. The topics of the interview range from Twilight to teaching to an important issue the world faces today.
1) When did you start writing and acting? Why did you start, and where you expecting your writing and acting to go?
When I was 23. Had no idea where it was going to go.
2) What are you working on now?
A new play about children who don’t make it through school and end up incarcerated.
3) Why did you choose the topic of the 1992 Los Angeles riots to write Twilight about? Were there any negative reactions to Twilight because of the topic matter?
It was a chance to look at a complex story where lots of different kinds of people of many races and social classes had differing points of view. I’m not aware of negative reactions.
4) How does acting in a one-person show (like you did with Twilight) challenge you and how does it limit you?
It challenges me because it’s hard work. I don’t think it limits me because I also act in other forms that are more traditional, with full casts.
5) Are you optimistic for change for citizens of color in the future? What do you think would really help to have done to address the issue (e.g. body cameras for police, affirmative action, addressing criminal justice system issues, etc.)?
I am not optimistic but I am hopeful. The problem has to do with inequality. We must educate the public and do everything we can to support schools and teachers who are in poor communities. We need to reinvent schools.
6) You have experience teaching — what do you think is the most rewarding aspect of teaching? Why?
I like some of the ideas of my students and their imaginations. I like the community that can occur in a classroom when things go well. I also like the risk taking.
7) What do you think the purpose of acting is?
To act as if you were someone else in order to tell a story in three dimensions.
8) If you could focus one issue the world faces and make progress on it, which would you choose? And why?
Inequality.
9) If you could give one piece of advice to a young, aspiring artist today, what would it be?
Read my book Letter to A Young Artist (Random House, 2000)!
You can view an encore presentation of Twilight on PBS’ website by following the link below:
If you liked the article, then hit the ❤ button below, and, if you cannot get enough, then you can learn more about Anna Deavere Smith from following the links below:
You can buy her books here.
You can visit her website here.
You can follow her on Twitter here.
You can look her up on Facebook here.
Sources:
“Riots erupt in Los Angeles.” History.com. A&E Television Networks. Web. 17 Mar 2016.
