SOURCE: "Twilight's First Gleaming," in The Village Voice, Vol. XXXIX, No. 14, April 5, 1994, pp. 97, 100.

[In the following review, Feingold praises Smith both as a performer and as a writer.]

Roughly 10 minutes into Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Anna Deavere Smith disappears. I can't cite the exact moment; her material's so riveting that you only notice her absence after the fact. The artist, the selecting principle, has gone; what remains onstage is the life of L.A. before, during, and after the riots: men, women, and children, talking in a torrent of diverse languages, living out their anger, their pain, their injuries and resentments and joys and fears. Few stages have ever held such a huge, varied crowd; you meet, if my count is right, 46 people, from senators to gang members, opera stars to truck drivers.

And, aside from a minute flick of her distinguished chin as each new figure begins to...