Fires in the Mirror
Encyclopedia
Fires in the Mirror is a play by American playwright, author, actress, and professor Anna Deavere Smith
. It chronicles the viewpoints of people connected to the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, crisis of 1991.
's play Fires in the Mirror is a part of her project On the Road: A Search for the American Character. It is a series of monologues excerpted from interviews. Fires in the Mirror chronicles a civic disturbance in the New York neighborhood of Crown Heights
in August 1991. In that racially divided neighborhood, a car driven by a Jewish man veered onto a sidewalk and killed a 7-year-old Caribbean-American boy who was learning to ride a bicycle. The accident and the response of emergency medical personnel sparked protests during which a Jewish student visiting from Australia was stabbed on the street by a group of black youths. Days of rioting ensued, exposing to national scrutiny the depth of the racial divisions in Crown Heights. The rioting produced 190 injuries, 129 arrests, and an estimated one million dollars in property damage.
Smith interviewed leading politicians, writers, musicians, religious leaders, and intellectuals together with residents of Crown Heights and participants in the disturbances to craft the monologues of her play. Through the words of 26 different people, in 29 monologues, Smith explores how and why people signal their identities, how they perceive and respond to people different from themselves, and how barriers between groups can be breached. "My sense is that American character lives not in one place or the other," Smith writes in her introduction to the play, "but in the gaps between the places, and in our struggle to be together in our differences." The title of the play suggests a vision of art as a site of reflection where the passions and fires of a specific moment can be examined from a new angle, contemplated, and better understood.
Plot, as defined by David Rush in A Student Guide to Play Analysis, is “the deliberate selection and arrangement of the incidents that the playwright presents” (35). Throughout Fires in the Mirror, every monologue is referring to the same crisis and incidents surrounding, and while they do each have something in common, they are uniquely different. Fires in the Mirror does not follow the typical seven parts of a well-made play. The seven parts include: a state of equilibrium, an inciting incident, a point of attack, the rising action, the climax, a resolution, and finally a new state of equilibrium. Instead, Fires in the Mirror is a collection of individual monologues, brought together by Anna Deavere Smith. And while there is no linear plot with developing characters throughout its entirety, there is some logic to how Smith lays out and clumps together the monologues.
Identity
Mirrors
Hair
Race
Rhythm
Seven Verses
Crown Heights, Brooklyn, August 1991
Each section is centered around a different theme. These themes include the ideas of personal identity, differences in physical appearance, differences in race, and the feelings toward the riot incidents. Smith divided Fires in the Mirror into themed sections and she systematically placed monologues into these themes. Each monologue has a heading of its own, and when placed into each section, gives an arc to Fires in the Mirror. It lays a path for the audience to follow the line from broad personal identity issues, to physical identity issues, to issues of race and ethnicity, and finally ending in issues relating to the Crown Heights incident.
The character are as follows:
Ntozake Shange: 42-45 year old African-American playwright, poet, novelist
Anonymous Lubavitcher Woman: White mid-thirties preschool teacher
George C. Wolfe: African-American playwright and was the current director/producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival (served 1993-2004)
Aaron M. Bernstein: man in his fifties. Physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Anonymous Girl: A junior high, teen-age black girl of Haitian descent. Lives in Brooklyn (near Crown Heights)
The Reverend Al Sharpton
: Well-known African-American New York activist and minister
Rivkah Siegal: Lubavitcher women. Graphic designer. Age unspecified.
Angela Davis: African American woman in her late 40s. Author, orator, activist and scholar. Was currently a Professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Monique 'Big Mo' Matthews: African American Los Angeles rapper
Leonard Jeffries: African American Professor of African American Studies at City University of New York. Was the former head of the department.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin: White author and founding editor of Ms. Magazine. Of Jewish descent and in her fifties.
Minister Conrad Mohammed: African American minister of New York who associates himself with Nation of Islam (presently Baptist). The minister for the Honorable Louis Farrakhan.
Robert F. Sherman: Director and Mayor of the City of New York’s Increase the Peace Corps.
Rabbi Joseph Spielman: Spokesperson in the Luabvitch community
Reverend Canon Doctor Heron Sam: Pastor at St. Mark’s Crown Heights Church, of African American descent
Anonymous Young Man #1: resident of Crown Heights, Caribbean American man in his late teens or early twenties
Michael S. Miller: Executive Director at the Jewish Community Relations Council
Henry Rice: Crown Heights resident
Norman Rosenbaum: Brother of Yankel Rosenbaum, an Australian
Anonymous Young Man #2: Crown Heights resident, an African American young man in his late teens or early twenties
Sonny Carson: Activist, of African American descent
Rabbi Shea Hecht: middle-aged Luabvitcher rabbi, spokesperson
Richard Green: Director of the Crown Heights Youth Collective and Co-director of Project CURE (a black-Hasidic basketball team that developed after the riots)
Roslyn Malamud: Lubavitcher resident of Crown Heights
Reumven Ostrov: Lubavicher youth and member of project CURE, 17 years old at the time of the rioting and worked as an assistant chaplain at Kings County Hospital
Carmel Cato: Father of Gavin Cato, originally from Guyana but now a resident of Crown Heights
Anonymous Lubavitcher Woman: She explains her own religious affiliation as being Jewish and the perceptions she feels others have of her as being Jewish because of her beliefs. She is not bitter and instead, her words have a sense of humor attached to them.
George C. Wolfe: Wolfe talks about racial identity and argues that "blackness" is extremely different than "whiteness"
Aaron M. Bernstein: Bernstein intellectually theorizes how mirrors can distort images both scientifically and in literature
Anonymous Girl: She talks about how racial identity is extremely important in her school and the girls act, dress, and wear their hair according to the racial groups.
The Reverend Al Sharpton: He explains that he promised James Brown he would always wear his hair straightened and that it was not due to anything racial, just strictly based on friendship and promises.
Rivkah Siegal: Discusses the difficulty behind the custom of wearing wigs. She focuses on how she feels like she is not herself and that she is fake.
Angela Davis: Davis talks about the changes in history of Blacks and Whites and then continuing need to find ways to come together as people
Monique Matthews: Matthews discusses the perception of rap and the attitude toward women in the hip-hop culture. She explains the need for women in that culture to be more confident and not just accept that they need to fall into being okay with "just [being] considered a ho".
Leonard Jeffries: Describes his involvement in Roots, a television series about the slave trade.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin: Explains that blacks attack Jews because Jews are the only ones that listen to them and view them as important other human beings.
Minister Conrad Mohammaed: Theorizes and explains that blacks are God's chosen people and explains his views on the suffering of blacks at the hands of white people.
Robert Sherman: Explains that the English language is not useful for describing racial relations
Rabbi Joseph Spielman: Describes the riot events and believes that blacks lied about the events surrounding the murder of Cato in order to start anti-Semitic riots. Focuses on the malicious intent of the black kids that stabbed Rosenbaum
The Reverend Canon Doctor Heron Sam: Explains his opposing viewpoint on how the Jewish community was unconcerned with the killing of Cato
Anonymous Young Man #1: Explains his view on the differences of police contact with the Jewish and Black communities and how he thinks there is no justice for blacks and never any Jewish arrests.
Michael S. Miller: Argues that the black community is extremely anti-Semitic
Henry Rice:Describes his personal involvement in the events and the injustice placed upon him.
Norman Rosenbaum: Wants justice for his brother's murder and doesn't believe the police are doing all that they can. Correlates the murder of his brother as an injustice to the nation as a whole.
Anonymous Young Man #2: Explains that the black kid that was blamed for Rosenbaum's murder was an athlete and therefore wouldn't have killed anyone
Sonny Carson: Describes his personal contributions in the black community and how he is trying to teach blacks to act against the white power structure
Rabbi Shea Hecht: Does not believe integration is the solution to the problems of race relations
Richard Green: Believes that there are no role models for black youths and therefore there is rage among the black youth population
Roslyn Malamud: Blames the police and black leaders for letting the events and crisis get out of control
Reuven Ostrov: Describes how Jews got scared because there are "Jew-haters" everywhere
Carmel Cato: Closes the play by describing the trauma of seeing his son die and his resentment towards powerful Jews.
Fires in the Mirror is a unique hybrid of genres, including aspects of melodrama, tragedy, and comedy, but it is not limited to only those genres. It is coined Docudrama
. This is because it is a play about actual historical events. There is no personal commentary from Smith as the author and it is instead solely the words of the characters (real life people) involved in the events.
Smith is very detailed in how each interview was attained. She gives information as to where each one was done, including the settings and environment, other people that were near, and when the interviews took place. This adds emphasis to the fact that this play is very immediate and real. Nothing is fake or made up and everything is 100% real life.
The play is written out in verse. Smith tries to emulate through the use of lines, ellipses, and other notation, exactly how things were said in each interview. This adds emotion to plain text and when read, gives evidence into how things were actually said by each character during the interviews.
Fires in the Mirror is a post-modern play. According to David Rush, characteristics of a postmodern play include there being no “author”, its purpose is to engage the audience rather than show, there may be multiple narratives interacting with each other, the structure departs from the conventional play pattern, and the play is usually fragmented. Fires in the Mirror encompasses all of these characteristics.
The central focus point of Fires in the Mirror is the anger between two races in the area of Crown Heights in New York City. The anger and tension is between the Lubaviticher Jewish community and the community of people of African American descent. Fires in the Mirror gives firsthand accounts of peoples’ thoughts on the events surrounding the crisis. During the times of murder and mayhem of the Crown Heights crisis, people were forced to make choices with limited options and it is apparent in the words of these people that much of the choices made were on the basis of race. Much of the words spoken have meaning deeply rooted in the historical background between the Jews and the blacks. The information given in each monologue makes references to slavery and the holocaust, the relationships between the two races and the police, as well as the perceptions of the relationships between each other. It is made apparent that there is much anger between the two races and Smith’s play allows a voice for each character to express their viewpoint. They are allowed to express anger and feelings freely and the audience is given many personal accounts.
Personal Identity
Fires in the Mirror is the personal account of real life people involved in the Crown Heights crisis. They give personal testimony to Smith via interview and in the end, Smith has come up with a collection of multiple perspectives on the crisis, the events surrounding, and the deep clash between the two races. By showing us many different points of view and opinions on the issue, we are shown that everyone’s idea on the issue is a little bit different. There are not just two sides to the issue, divided by race; rather, there are many different attitudes, emotions, and opinions that are uniquely individual.
At the world premiere of Fires in the Mirror, Smith performs as a solo actor on stage. Real black and white photographs are displayed behind her as she moves from one monologue and character to the next.3 She moves from one character to the next by slightly changing her appearance. In most of her performance she is dressed in black pants and white shirt and is barefoot.
World Premiere: Fires in the Mirror had its world premiere at the New York Shakespeare Festival on May 1, 1992. Its official press opening was on May 12, 1992.
“’Fires in the Mirror’ reflects on violence and what lies beyond” – The New York Times, May 17, 1992
Other Productions and Sites: Fires in the Mirror has been presented in theaters such as the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, Brown University, Stanford University, Royal Court Theatre in London, and many others.
Film: A film of the play was adapted under the direction of George C. Wolfe and starred Anna Deavere Smith herself. It was produced by Cherie Fortis and filmed by “American Playhouse”.
She authored many plays including:
On the Road: A Search for an American Character-1982
Aye, Aye, Aye, I'm Integrated-1984
On Black Identity and Black Theatre-1990
From the Inside Looking In-1990
Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities-1992
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992–1993
House Arrest First Edition-1997
Piano-2000
She has also been nominated and received many awards for her pieces including:
1992: Drama-Logue Award, Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Pulitzer Prize Nomination for Fires in the Mirror
1993: Antoinette Perry Award, Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award for Twilight: Los Angeles 1992
Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist in residence at the Center for American Progress.-Early life:...
. It chronicles the viewpoints of people connected to the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, crisis of 1991.
Context
Anna Deavere SmithAnna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist in residence at the Center for American Progress.-Early life:...
's play Fires in the Mirror is a part of her project On the Road: A Search for the American Character. It is a series of monologues excerpted from interviews. Fires in the Mirror chronicles a civic disturbance in the New York neighborhood of Crown Heights
Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The main thoroughfare through this neighborhood is Eastern Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted extending two miles east-west.Originally, the area was known as Crow Hill....
in August 1991. In that racially divided neighborhood, a car driven by a Jewish man veered onto a sidewalk and killed a 7-year-old Caribbean-American boy who was learning to ride a bicycle. The accident and the response of emergency medical personnel sparked protests during which a Jewish student visiting from Australia was stabbed on the street by a group of black youths. Days of rioting ensued, exposing to national scrutiny the depth of the racial divisions in Crown Heights. The rioting produced 190 injuries, 129 arrests, and an estimated one million dollars in property damage.
Smith interviewed leading politicians, writers, musicians, religious leaders, and intellectuals together with residents of Crown Heights and participants in the disturbances to craft the monologues of her play. Through the words of 26 different people, in 29 monologues, Smith explores how and why people signal their identities, how they perceive and respond to people different from themselves, and how barriers between groups can be breached. "My sense is that American character lives not in one place or the other," Smith writes in her introduction to the play, "but in the gaps between the places, and in our struggle to be together in our differences." The title of the play suggests a vision of art as a site of reflection where the passions and fires of a specific moment can be examined from a new angle, contemplated, and better understood.
Plot synopsis
The play is a series of monologues attained from interviews Anna Deavere Smith did with people involved in the Crown Heights crisis. Each one is titled with the person’s name as well as a key phrase from each interview, which tries to sum up what that person was trying to say or an important aspect of their monologue. There are a total of 29 monologues in Fires in the Mirror and each one focuses on a different character’s opinion and point of view of the events and issues surrounding the crisis.Plot, as defined by David Rush in A Student Guide to Play Analysis, is “the deliberate selection and arrangement of the incidents that the playwright presents” (35). Throughout Fires in the Mirror, every monologue is referring to the same crisis and incidents surrounding, and while they do each have something in common, they are uniquely different. Fires in the Mirror does not follow the typical seven parts of a well-made play. The seven parts include: a state of equilibrium, an inciting incident, a point of attack, the rising action, the climax, a resolution, and finally a new state of equilibrium. Instead, Fires in the Mirror is a collection of individual monologues, brought together by Anna Deavere Smith. And while there is no linear plot with developing characters throughout its entirety, there is some logic to how Smith lays out and clumps together the monologues.
Plot analysis
Fires in the Mirror is divided into themed sections, encompassing monologues Smith saw fit under each category. They are as divided as follows:Identity
- The Desert
- Static
- 101 Dalmatians
Mirrors
- Mirrors and Distortions
Hair
- Look in the Mirror
- Me and James’s Thing
- Wigs
Race
- Rope
Rhythm
- Rhythm and Poetry
Seven Verses
- Roots
- Near Enough to Reach
- Seven Verses
- Isaac
- Lousy Language
Crown Heights, Brooklyn, August 1991
- No Blood in His Feet
- Mexican Standoff
- Wa Wa Wa
- “Heil Hitler”
- Knew How to Use Certain Words
- My Brother’s Blood
- Sixteen Hours Difference
- Bad Boy
- Chords
- Ovens
- Rain
- Rage
- The Coup
- Pogroms
- Lingering
Each section is centered around a different theme. These themes include the ideas of personal identity, differences in physical appearance, differences in race, and the feelings toward the riot incidents. Smith divided Fires in the Mirror into themed sections and she systematically placed monologues into these themes. Each monologue has a heading of its own, and when placed into each section, gives an arc to Fires in the Mirror. It lays a path for the audience to follow the line from broad personal identity issues, to physical identity issues, to issues of race and ethnicity, and finally ending in issues relating to the Crown Heights incident.
Character guide
Within Fires in the Mirror, there are a total of 26 real life characters. One character appears in solo in one monologue, with two characters, The Reverend Al Sharpton and Letty Cottin Pogrebin, appearing in two monologues each.The character are as follows:
Ntozake Shange: 42-45 year old African-American playwright, poet, novelist
Anonymous Lubavitcher Woman: White mid-thirties preschool teacher
George C. Wolfe: African-American playwright and was the current director/producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival (served 1993-2004)
Aaron M. Bernstein: man in his fifties. Physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Anonymous Girl: A junior high, teen-age black girl of Haitian descent. Lives in Brooklyn (near Crown Heights)
The Reverend Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton
Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election...
: Well-known African-American New York activist and minister
Rivkah Siegal: Lubavitcher women. Graphic designer. Age unspecified.
Angela Davis: African American woman in her late 40s. Author, orator, activist and scholar. Was currently a Professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Monique 'Big Mo' Matthews: African American Los Angeles rapper
Leonard Jeffries: African American Professor of African American Studies at City University of New York. Was the former head of the department.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin: White author and founding editor of Ms. Magazine. Of Jewish descent and in her fifties.
Minister Conrad Mohammed: African American minister of New York who associates himself with Nation of Islam (presently Baptist). The minister for the Honorable Louis Farrakhan.
Robert F. Sherman: Director and Mayor of the City of New York’s Increase the Peace Corps.
Rabbi Joseph Spielman: Spokesperson in the Luabvitch community
Reverend Canon Doctor Heron Sam: Pastor at St. Mark’s Crown Heights Church, of African American descent
Anonymous Young Man #1: resident of Crown Heights, Caribbean American man in his late teens or early twenties
Michael S. Miller: Executive Director at the Jewish Community Relations Council
Henry Rice: Crown Heights resident
Norman Rosenbaum: Brother of Yankel Rosenbaum, an Australian
Anonymous Young Man #2: Crown Heights resident, an African American young man in his late teens or early twenties
Sonny Carson: Activist, of African American descent
Rabbi Shea Hecht: middle-aged Luabvitcher rabbi, spokesperson
Richard Green: Director of the Crown Heights Youth Collective and Co-director of Project CURE (a black-Hasidic basketball team that developed after the riots)
Roslyn Malamud: Lubavitcher resident of Crown Heights
Reumven Ostrov: Lubavicher youth and member of project CURE, 17 years old at the time of the rioting and worked as an assistant chaplain at Kings County Hospital
Carmel Cato: Father of Gavin Cato, originally from Guyana but now a resident of Crown Heights
Character description
Ntozake Shange: Discusses Identity in terms of the self fitting into the community as a whole and the feeling of being separate from others but still somewhat a part of the whole.Anonymous Lubavitcher Woman: She explains her own religious affiliation as being Jewish and the perceptions she feels others have of her as being Jewish because of her beliefs. She is not bitter and instead, her words have a sense of humor attached to them.
George C. Wolfe: Wolfe talks about racial identity and argues that "blackness" is extremely different than "whiteness"
Aaron M. Bernstein: Bernstein intellectually theorizes how mirrors can distort images both scientifically and in literature
Anonymous Girl: She talks about how racial identity is extremely important in her school and the girls act, dress, and wear their hair according to the racial groups.
The Reverend Al Sharpton: He explains that he promised James Brown he would always wear his hair straightened and that it was not due to anything racial, just strictly based on friendship and promises.
Rivkah Siegal: Discusses the difficulty behind the custom of wearing wigs. She focuses on how she feels like she is not herself and that she is fake.
Angela Davis: Davis talks about the changes in history of Blacks and Whites and then continuing need to find ways to come together as people
Monique Matthews: Matthews discusses the perception of rap and the attitude toward women in the hip-hop culture. She explains the need for women in that culture to be more confident and not just accept that they need to fall into being okay with "just [being] considered a ho".
Leonard Jeffries: Describes his involvement in Roots, a television series about the slave trade.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin: Explains that blacks attack Jews because Jews are the only ones that listen to them and view them as important other human beings.
Minister Conrad Mohammaed: Theorizes and explains that blacks are God's chosen people and explains his views on the suffering of blacks at the hands of white people.
Robert Sherman: Explains that the English language is not useful for describing racial relations
Rabbi Joseph Spielman: Describes the riot events and believes that blacks lied about the events surrounding the murder of Cato in order to start anti-Semitic riots. Focuses on the malicious intent of the black kids that stabbed Rosenbaum
The Reverend Canon Doctor Heron Sam: Explains his opposing viewpoint on how the Jewish community was unconcerned with the killing of Cato
Anonymous Young Man #1: Explains his view on the differences of police contact with the Jewish and Black communities and how he thinks there is no justice for blacks and never any Jewish arrests.
Michael S. Miller: Argues that the black community is extremely anti-Semitic
Henry Rice:Describes his personal involvement in the events and the injustice placed upon him.
Norman Rosenbaum: Wants justice for his brother's murder and doesn't believe the police are doing all that they can. Correlates the murder of his brother as an injustice to the nation as a whole.
Anonymous Young Man #2: Explains that the black kid that was blamed for Rosenbaum's murder was an athlete and therefore wouldn't have killed anyone
Sonny Carson: Describes his personal contributions in the black community and how he is trying to teach blacks to act against the white power structure
Rabbi Shea Hecht: Does not believe integration is the solution to the problems of race relations
Richard Green: Believes that there are no role models for black youths and therefore there is rage among the black youth population
Roslyn Malamud: Blames the police and black leaders for letting the events and crisis get out of control
Reuven Ostrov: Describes how Jews got scared because there are "Jew-haters" everywhere
Carmel Cato: Closes the play by describing the trauma of seeing his son die and his resentment towards powerful Jews.
Genre
Anna Deveare Smith’s Fires in the Mirror is a unique kind of play. Since it is a collection of real people’s thoughts and opinions, it is not a piece of work originating from Smith’s thoughts, so there is not one singular author voice or point of view. However, there is an author concern and Smith makes it quite apparent.Fires in the Mirror is a unique hybrid of genres, including aspects of melodrama, tragedy, and comedy, but it is not limited to only those genres. It is coined Docudrama
Docudrama
In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
. This is because it is a play about actual historical events. There is no personal commentary from Smith as the author and it is instead solely the words of the characters (real life people) involved in the events.
Style
The style of Fires in the Mirror is a unique, post-modern play. Fires in the Mirror is a collection of multiple voices and points of views. It is a hybrid of theater and journalism. Smith went out and interviewed all of the characters and recorded their words, their physical appearance, and their surroundings to give an accurate description of who these people were. Afterward, she arranged the words to fit into shorter monologues, while maintaining the essence of what they were trying to put forth in their words and emotions.Smith is very detailed in how each interview was attained. She gives information as to where each one was done, including the settings and environment, other people that were near, and when the interviews took place. This adds emphasis to the fact that this play is very immediate and real. Nothing is fake or made up and everything is 100% real life.
The play is written out in verse. Smith tries to emulate through the use of lines, ellipses, and other notation, exactly how things were said in each interview. This adds emotion to plain text and when read, gives evidence into how things were actually said by each character during the interviews.
Fires in the Mirror is a post-modern play. According to David Rush, characteristics of a postmodern play include there being no “author”, its purpose is to engage the audience rather than show, there may be multiple narratives interacting with each other, the structure departs from the conventional play pattern, and the play is usually fragmented. Fires in the Mirror encompasses all of these characteristics.
Language
The use of language is that of words solely originating from individuals. Anna Deavere Smith interviewed individuals and recorded their words, exactly as said. Smith then transcribed their words onto paper. The culmination of Smith’s work is a series of versed monologues that are able to convey both meaning and feeling. Smith tries to transcribe in a style that keeps all of the words and emotions of their authors intact. When read on paper, the words and sentences are broken up, to give a sense of sound of how they gave their interview. This portrays a sense that each character is in deep thought, excited and rushed, and so on during their interviews. This allowed Smith to emulate the characters' speech patterns and vocal rhythms to try to convey the essence of each character.Themes
Racially Motivated AngerThe central focus point of Fires in the Mirror is the anger between two races in the area of Crown Heights in New York City. The anger and tension is between the Lubaviticher Jewish community and the community of people of African American descent. Fires in the Mirror gives firsthand accounts of peoples’ thoughts on the events surrounding the crisis. During the times of murder and mayhem of the Crown Heights crisis, people were forced to make choices with limited options and it is apparent in the words of these people that much of the choices made were on the basis of race. Much of the words spoken have meaning deeply rooted in the historical background between the Jews and the blacks. The information given in each monologue makes references to slavery and the holocaust, the relationships between the two races and the police, as well as the perceptions of the relationships between each other. It is made apparent that there is much anger between the two races and Smith’s play allows a voice for each character to express their viewpoint. They are allowed to express anger and feelings freely and the audience is given many personal accounts.
Personal Identity
Fires in the Mirror is the personal account of real life people involved in the Crown Heights crisis. They give personal testimony to Smith via interview and in the end, Smith has come up with a collection of multiple perspectives on the crisis, the events surrounding, and the deep clash between the two races. By showing us many different points of view and opinions on the issue, we are shown that everyone’s idea on the issue is a little bit different. There are not just two sides to the issue, divided by race; rather, there are many different attitudes, emotions, and opinions that are uniquely individual.
Spectacle
The main element of Fires in the Mirror that is of up most importance to the spectacle of the play, is the fact that Fires in the Mirror is originally staged as a one-person play. A single actor plays every single part. Smith staged her play with no real physical set and limited props and costumes.At the world premiere of Fires in the Mirror, Smith performs as a solo actor on stage. Real black and white photographs are displayed behind her as she moves from one monologue and character to the next.3 She moves from one character to the next by slightly changing her appearance. In most of her performance she is dressed in black pants and white shirt and is barefoot.
Music
The music for Fires in the Mirror varies significantly. Smith overlays music and her monologues. Her music choices range from black hip hop to Jewish chants. She chooses her music to pair well with the author’s background or the essence of each monologue.Production history
First Workshop Production: Smith presented a first workshop production in December 1991 at George Wolfe’s Festival of New VoicesWorld Premiere: Fires in the Mirror had its world premiere at the New York Shakespeare Festival on May 1, 1992. Its official press opening was on May 12, 1992.
“’Fires in the Mirror’ reflects on violence and what lies beyond” – The New York Times, May 17, 1992
Other Productions and Sites: Fires in the Mirror has been presented in theaters such as the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, Brown University, Stanford University, Royal Court Theatre in London, and many others.
Film: A film of the play was adapted under the direction of George C. Wolfe and starred Anna Deavere Smith herself. It was produced by Cherie Fortis and filmed by “American Playhouse”.
About the author
Anna Deavere Smith is an actress, playwright, and professor born on September 18, 1950 She received her M.F.A in acting from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California. She is best known for her unique play writing style which has been dubbed "documentary theater". Two of her plays, titled Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 fall into this style of play writing.She authored many plays including:
On the Road: A Search for an American Character-1982
Aye, Aye, Aye, I'm Integrated-1984
On Black Identity and Black Theatre-1990
From the Inside Looking In-1990
Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities-1992
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992–1993
House Arrest First Edition-1997
Piano-2000
She has also been nominated and received many awards for her pieces including:
1992: Drama-Logue Award, Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Pulitzer Prize Nomination for Fires in the Mirror
1993: Antoinette Perry Award, Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award for Twilight: Los Angeles 1992