Monday, September 20, 2010
Theatre 120 Response 1: Fires in the Mirror
Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror was unlike any play that I have read before. The concept of one actor or actress portraying twenty-six different characters in one play seemed interesting, but once I started to read the play, I was not a fan of the format. I thought that the way that the information was presented was very choppy and extremely hard to follow. In the beginning of the play, it was hard to tell how the information all was fitting together. I did not like that we had no information about what types of questions were asked in the interview and what prompted the response that we were hearing from the author. Towards the end of the play though, I liked that we were actually getting information from people that had witnessed the accident and were getting different perspectives on what had actually gone on that day. Although I did not enjoy the format at all, I did however like some of the individual characters and stories. The story "Hair" as told by the Anonymous Girl was one of my favorites. I felt like it really spoke to some of the interracial issues that we are still dealing with today. Additionally, I enjoyed the "Heil Hitler" story. It really put into perspective the magnitude of the hatred and feelings of anti-Judiasm going on during this time in this are. Overall, I would say that this was definitely not one of my favorite plays and wouldn't really be interested in reading another play in this format.
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I agree that the format was somewhat hard to read. The beginning of the play definitely confused me, because the first half or so wasn't even about the incident, it was people talking about random things. I think the individual stories did portray their stances on racism, both past and present, very well. I agree with you that the end of the play was more interesting than the beginning, because it seemed to focus on the main event of the story-the young boy who was hit by the car. It seemed to portray both sides of the story pretty equally, with no bias that I could detect.
ReplyDeletethe play was confusing at the beginning and hard to follow because you really didn't know what some of the people were talking about or why it was relevant to the accident. The end of the play was more exciting. When they acutally stated talking about the accident and the people who witnessed it, the play definitley got more exciting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the format being hard to read. To me, the format is set up, especially at the beginning, not to tell us about the Crown Heights conflict but also to get us thinking about the main themes of the play such as identity and race. Like you, I found this part to seem confusing and dull. I also enjoyed the "Hair" monologue!
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