Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 has garnered considerable critical acclaim through its production history, stretching from venues in Los Angeles and New York to Washington, D. C. and London, England. Its success in theaters far removed from the play's focus and epicenter, the Spring, 1992, civil upheaval in South-Central Los Angeles, attests to its power to transcend the topicality of its content the real-world social problems that have led P. J. Corso and others to call her play a "docudrama."

For some critics, in her On the Road series, of which Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 and Fires in the Mirror are the most compelling and successful parts, Smith has created what a reviewer in Time claims is "a new art form." But what that new form is remains very controversial. So, too, does Smith's classification as a writer.

In analyzing Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 and other pieces from...