Upcoming CTA play looks clearly at race, riots, rage in Los Angeles

The fury, despair, ambiguity and heroics of the 1992 Los Angeles riots explode on stage at the Cornell Center for Theatre Arts as Twilight Los Angeles, 1992 makes its regional premiere Oct. 28-Nov. 8.

Written by award-winning author, Anna Deavere Smith, Twilight Los Angeles, 1992 explores the agony of the most devastating and costly American civil disturbances in the 20th century, one that saw similar revolts reverberate throughout several other U.S. cities.

Twilight Los Angeles, 1992 will be presented in the center's Class of '56 Flexible Theatre. Show times are at 8 p.m. Oct. 28-Nov. 1 and Nov. 4-7. Matinees are at 2 p.m. Nov. 1, 7 and 8. Tickets are $7 for students and seniors and $9 for the general public. Call or visit the CTA Box Office between 12:30 and 5:30 p.m. weekdays, or call 254-ARTS.

Through their verbatim words, over 40 characters who experienced some facet of the uprising and its causes relate their viewpoints candidly, hauntingly and poignantly. A generating factor in the 1992 social upheaval in Los Angeles was the videotaped, savage beating in the spring 1991 of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers after a high-speed car chase, and the acquittal of four of the officers on all charges in a 1992 trial. That acquittal detonated years of pent-up frustration, racial mistrust, economic stress, class antagonisms and anger over mounting inner-city problems. Three terrifying days of protests, burning, looting and violent rage by people of all ages, races and cultures followed, capturing the attention of the world.

Guest Director Benny Sato Ambush integrates video and print images into the storytelling because so much of the events were televised as they happened.

"Those inflammatory media images of the various beatings, the Simi Valley trial, the mayhem in the streets are forever burned in many peoples' conscience," said Ambush. "But making sense out of what we saw has eluded many of us; the mainstream media was not always helpful in that regard as it was happening. The heart of the uprising is the human element from which deeper insights might be gained. Twilight offers a collage of intense, personal responses to this defining moment which turned the City of Angels upside down."

Ambush is a former associate artistic director of San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater and former producing director of the Oakland (Calif.) Ensemble Theatre. Currently he is a Pew Charitable Trust/TCG National Theatre artist-in-residence at the Florida Stage.

There will be a discussion following the Nov. 5 performance. Panelists are: Jean Kim, co-chair of the Asian Pacific American Graduate Association; Amy Lee of the Asian Pacific Americans for Action; Joyce Lee, Twilight character actress and CTA Resident Professional Teaching Associate; and James Turner, professor at Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center. Moderating the panel will be J. Ellen Gainor, associate professor and director of graduate studies for the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance.