I saw this on PBS recently. I had heard something about a one woman show at the Sundance Festival last year or maybe year before. This is one of the finest crafted theatre pieces I have ever seen on screen. In fact, as a playwright of 4 one person shows, I can attest to the craftsmanship, the integrity, the luminosity of Ms. Deavere's script. As a social commentary in the one woman show genre it is without parallel. As a social commentary/docu-drama in any genre it is stunning. Intelligent without being intellectual, graphic without being gratuitous, detailed without being tedious or sensational, she has captured a seminal event in modern American history with grace, guts, and vision. Her acting is genuine, sincere, riveting, and entertaining. She transcends herself, her time and thereby gives the viewer true illumination of what it is a human being can do, what a human being does best. Her comprehension of black social conditions in L.A. is breath taking. And just as remarkable, she and her associates translated a stage play to screen in a way seldom successful. I can recall no stage/screen translation as successful. Bravo all the way down the line.
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