We just observed the 25th anniversary of his beating. I thought that my meditation would be simply for the season, maybe the summer of 2012.įor better or for worse, and mostly for worse, Rodney King has continued to be relevant. And perhaps that was my great personal tragedy-that I, like most of us, knew him as you say, only symbolically. I referenced him several times in my work onstage. I wanted to know why I was moved, and why, by extension, my potential audience would be moved. The same one that I've been on since I opened up my laptop on Father's Day 2012 and saw that Rodney King had drowned in the bottom of his swimming pool. I'm trying to take my audience on a journey of discovery. Given the degree to which that is still such a syndrome in American life, it makes sense to deal with him dramatically, but because of the symbolic role he was thrust into-both during that disgusting video and after-it's hard to know who the man was. He exists as a symbol, maybe the symbol, of being a victim of police brutality. I interviewed Smith on the phone last week in advance of his return to Seattle. Rather, he told me, the show is constructed as a "postmortem interrogation" and "journey through the many lives and times of Rodney King, which were abbreviated, unfortunately." He doesn't portray King the way he did Newton. Smith returns to Seattle this weekend with Rodney King, a very different show. Spike Lee, who cast Smith in several post-Smiley roles, made a film of the Newton show, which, despite being excellent, can never touch the sensation of being in the room that night. Few stage actors I've seen have come within a mile of Smith's expressive vitality, his utter command of the room, his astonishing verbal dexterity (in terms of tempo, volume, pitch, timbre, force, and grace), and above all, his capacity as a writer-performer to harness those qualities in the service of a story that matters. "Changed my life" has become a corny platitude to describe things you enjoy, but Smith's show became a benchmark to me. The experience of seeing it has stayed with me ever since. In September of 1997, Smith came to Seattle to perform his riveting solo show A Huey P. His presence as Smiley, the stuttering chorus of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, guaranteed him a fixed point on my radar screen for life, though in truth, it was his role as the conniving, pre-doomed Eddie in Bill Duke's Deep Cover (1992) that made it clear Smith was a strikingly memorable talent I would never miss a chance to watch. Roger Guenveur Smith is a character actor who has been enlivening films for nearly 30 years.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |