Anna of a thousand faces - Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman plays 'Fires in the Mirror' and 'Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992' as part of her series 'On the Road: The Search for the American Character' about African American experiences

Many actors live for the wave of applause at curtain call -- for the endorsement of their performance, of their artistry. on the contrary as dramatist and actress Anna Deavere Smith get backed to the empty stage of Broadway's Cort Theater to acknowledge the cheers of the audience, her countenance was pensive and reserved. She seemed to bewilderment Had she relayed it all?

In the past sum of two units years, Smith has seized the American stage with her one-person explorations of humanity in turmoil: Fires in the Mirror examines the troubl relationship between blacks and Hasidic israelites in the Brooklyn neighborhood of diadem Heights and the violent eruption that accompanied the deaths of 7-year-old Gavin Cato and rabbinical scholar Yankel Rosenbaum. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 explores the devastating riots that followed the first acquittals of the police officers charged with beating motorist Rodney King.

the two Fires and Twilight were embraced by the agency of the cities that inspired them. Fires was the of high temperature ticket of the season at fresh York's Public Theater. Twilight--commissioned by means of the Mark Taper Forum in looks Angeles--was described as cathartic through many Los Angelenos, its performances sometimes followed by dint of thorny audience discussions.

of recent origin York theater critics raved when Twilight arrived at the Public Theater and later saluted the play's propel to Broadway. The work was described as a "treasure" and a "masterpiece"; Smith was touted as "one of the greatest in quantity important voices in contemporary theater." Although Smith's work was nominated, this year's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Awards elud her. However, Twilight was honored by means of five other dramatic institutions. Smith received awards from the novel York Drama Critics Circle, the Drama Desk the exterior Critics Circle and Theater World, as well as the Obie for best play.

To create Fires and Twilight, Smith did not rely upon her own observations and insights, on the contrary rather hearkened to the voices of those who lived from one side the conflicts, those whose "anonymity I find in the way that disturbing," she says. From centurys of taped interviews with members of the communities involved, Smith distilled and orchestrated unstained unbiased, tumultuous symphonies.

Each trice in Smith's world is seamless. from one extremity to the other of Twilight, she is attired in black pants and loosely tailored shirts and exercises only the simplest props and accessories. In individual scene she sits confidently in a power chair at center stage--one r high heel planted upon terra firma, the other dangling from the lower extremity of her crossed leg. Smith has slipped into the skin of Hollywood executive Suzanne DePasse.

A slide projection of hundred City glimmers in the background; a supertitle bearing DePasse's name and the segment's caption, "The cash Train," hovers overhead. Smith luxuriates in DePasse's no-nonsense acumen--her understanding of power, her belief in her destiny, her contemplations about buying a gun--and then there is a swift blackout.

When the stage lights make progress up, power heels and chair have been discarded and the actress is revealed anew: a can of soda in hand, a amethystine sweatshirt tied about her waist, a bare paw propped on the edge of a park bench. The supertitle introduces the one and the other this "Anonymous Young Man, Former Gang Member" and his description of urban violence, titled "Broad Daylight." The background photo is of palm tree viewed end the openings in a chain-link fence

As that image disappears, the audience is still quaking from the youth's menacing philosophy: "My theory was, when you let fly somebody in broad daylight, family gonna be mostly scared."

Smith relinquishes her stance at benchside and get backs to center stage. The cunning of her physical transition amazes--a shift of a shoulder, slight tilt of the head--however, it does not surpass the softening of voice and vocabulary. Before this of recent origin character, "Diane Van Iden, Brentwood Mother," can retie the sweatshirt in that around-the-shoulder mode of expression preferred by suburbanites, one is already absorbed in her fears for her children. ("Can you imagine if one took a gun to the prom?")

"Anna is like a ferret: She is real available to the truth and does not accept external explanations," says the Public Theater's artistic director, George C Wolfe who commissioned Fires for the Public and later directed Twilight the two at the Public and upon Broadway. "She understands that inside of language--inside of pauses, inside of everything--there is always this more complicated story going on"

Smith's understanding is driven by dint of her conviction that the realitys of a person's inner life frequently are manifested in the nuances of that person's nuncupatory and body language. She hon her observational skills by means of spending hours watching television talk shows--awaiting that twinkling when a subject's guard was down, the rehearsed language diminished, and the person's mind was revealed.

Twilight and Fires are parts of a performance series that Smith began in the early 1980 called upon the Road: The Search for American Character. "When I first began this work," she explains, "I asked a linguist by what mode I might encourage people to say 'uh' more. 'Uhs' are actually the place where I find American character. The linguist gave me three questions to ask: have you at any time come close to death? Have you at any time been accused of something that you did not do? Can you recall the circumstances of your birth?"