Fires in the Mirror

Well first of all I say if we are choosing to make a production of Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror the we do not have the right to question why she put these monologues in the play because she is the playwright and that was her decision and she has a reason for every word she put in the play. We as analysts have been taught that everything in the plays we read was made as a dramaturgical choice by the playwright and if are to make this production we have to include the monologues. They to me are critical to the script and because they preface us to what we are about to experience and what we are about to read. The monologues give us a little insight of what the riots are about and how people are as humans and how religion is so important to us. For example in monologue titled Static about the Anonymous Lubavitcher Woman who’s Jewish religion was so important to her she couldn’t turn on the radio so she tricked the little black boy to come in her home and turn on her radio. Another example of importance these monologues is in Aaron M. Bernstein’s Mirrors and Distortion his monologue to me show the difference of how someone could look beautiful on the outside and how ugly and evil a person could be on the inside. The mirrors are just the instrument used to trick us into believing that this person is beautiful when in all actuality people can be monsters.