In On the Road: A Search for American Character, the series of plays to which Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 belongs, Anna Deavere (Duh-veer) Smith set out, as she says, "to capture the personality of a place by attempting to embody its varied population and varied points of view in one person myself." Her series is a work-in-progress, its aim being the isolation of the American character through the dramatization of its many voices, the "different people" who "are shaping it." But her quest is partly a voyage of self-discovery, too, a shaping of her own role as a black woman writer, actress, and teacher.

Anna Deavere Smith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 18,1950, the oldest child of Deavere Smith and Anna Young Smith. Her father owned a coffee and tea business, and her mother was an elementary school principal. During her early years, Anna's upbringing was...