NEW ORLEANS— Roger Guenveur Smith has appeared in just about every Spike Lee production over the past 2 decades and he brings that acting experience and more to his one man play Rodney King, appearing this weekend at the Contemporary Arts Center.
Smith told us why it was important to him to portray King, “On Father’s Day 2012, Rodney King who was a father and a grandfather drowned in his swimming pool. I opened up my laptop, I was moved. I got the information and I wanted to know why. Why did I feel like I had lost my blood brother? The journey has been to figure out why I feel that way, and how my audience might feel that way as well.”
Smith continued, “In August of 2012 I was on stage on the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles trying to work it out. I knew that I wanted to do Rodney King’s seminal ‘Can we all get along?’ from May 1, 1992, I knew that I wanted to do Willie D’s reap from the Geto Boys where he says______ Rodney King, because he questioned the veracity of Rodney King getting in front of an international TV audience crying, lamenting the loss of a security guard who died in the riots in L.A. in 1992. Between those two bookend, I asked these questions, which of course could never be answered because I asked them of Rodney King.
The one man play Rodney King plays at the Contemporary Arts Center this Friday and Saturday at 7:30p.m. and Sunday at 3:30p.m. Click here for more information.
