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I have been particularly
interested in how the events in Los Angeles give us an opportunity to
take stock of the changing racial landscape in America. Since the 1992
riots, our attitudes about race have shifted. As the character Twilight
Bey indicates to us, we are in “limbo,” that time between day
and night. Part of perceiving the light is seeing race as more than a
black-and-white picture.
Where do theater and
film fit into this? Using the power of entertainment, spectacle, and dialogue,
theater and film can participate in civic discourse and even influence
national attitudes. At a time when our national conversation about race
has become, to some extent, merely fragments of monologues, Twilight
seeks to create a conversation from these fragments. It seeks to be a
part of that conversation.
Twilight
is a document of what I, as an actress, heard in Los Angeles. In creating
a “social drama,” I am not proposing a specific solution to
social problems. I turn that over to activists, scholars, legislators,
and most importantly, to you, the audience. As an actress, I am exploring
the process of becoming something that I am not — the
process of walking in someone else’s shoes. Laws and legislation
can create a context in which we can work toward better relations with
one another. Yet laws are limited in their ability to teach us how to
move from an individual position to a larger community.
We need to reach for
the core of our humanity with all its glory and all its challenges. I
am looking to illuminate something about our humanness.
The solutions lie not in my monologues but in the collaborative humanness
of audience members who walk out of the theater with the potential to
make change.
You anticipate me
before the curtain goes up; I anticipate you as the curtain
goes down. I await your dialogue, your dramatic
action.
Twilight
has been created specifically to encourage dialogue across lines of power
and race. More importantly, it has been created to encourage you to act
and to move us further along on our American journey to get to “we”
the people. Here is a place to start: Use the experience of seeing this
film and the thoughts it evoked to start a conversation with someone whose
race and social class are different from yours.
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Introduction
to Twilight Los Angeles
Shades
of Loss
Fires
in the Mirror
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