Fires
in the Mirror is a unique and interesting play because of the format. The monologues
of interviews of all kinds of different people give you so many different views
that it can be hard to decide what “side” you’re on. I know that as I read I
went back and forth on what was “right and wrong.” Considering the situation
there were things wrong on both sides, but the other side couldn’t see it, and
you’ll also get biased opinions, and bias is actually discussed in “Lousy
Language” and how we have so many different kinds of bias. It’s important to
understand people from both (cross out) all sides. Not just Blacks and Jews
that were directly related to the riots, but also Blacks and Jews that only
heard about it, or that have dealt with the racism or discrimination that
helped spark the riots. Cutting out the first monologues of Smith's Fires in the Mirror would be like
cutting out the exposition to any other play. Just because it's a series
of interviews on the Crown Heights riots doesn't mean that
an interview that doesn't speak directly to the riots isn't important.
The
very first monologue “Identity” I think is extremely important to the play because
identity is so important in our world and people in the riots lost their
identity and became either Black or Jewish. The following two monologues “Static”
and “ 101 Dalmatians” are sort of like introducing the two “characters” that ultimately
make up the show. Static is a small look into a Lubavitcher home and Dalmatians
is a look at a black man’s childhood and how he understands his place in his
world and in other people’s worlds. So it’s their introduction somewhat, and it’s
important to see how a random person from those two identities sees themself
and how they talk about themselves rather than from the other point of view.
Then
there is “Mirrors” which I think sheds an important light on the fact that
having as many views and points as possible is the only way to keep distortion visible
enough to fix. The bigger the telescope (the wider the range of people
interviewed) the easier to see distortion (the easier to find the facts or lack
of facts, you could say). The rest up until “Lousy Language” are all
continuations of characterizing and discussing the life that led up to the
riots. You have to have a background of a story to understand the conflict and-hopefully
in the end-to be able to get to a resolution. To cut those out would be cutting
out what I would call the unbiased accounts of their lives. As soon as you get
to monologues directly related to the riots you are seeing one side of it because
that is what they are concerned with discussing. Before that, they are simply
discussing the life they live, race/racism, and how they deal with it.
I don't know if I'm 100% sure if the people lost their identities due to this. I felt like what we all established is the identity was more of a reflection on these two specific races whether it be opinions on themselves or the opposite. It helps us to get a kind of background understanding of them before we move right into why exactly do they dislike each other so much? Why all that prejudice and racism?
ReplyDeleteDistortion. I love that you're using optical terminology in your post. I actually started looking for some reference to chromatic aberration or lens flare. I like what you said about exposition here. While this play doesn't follow the traditional exposition/character introduction pattern we commonly see, it essentially accomplishes the same goal through these opening monologues. In fact, in a way I feel like this roundabout method accomplishes more than a traditional opening exposition by forcing the audience to connect and relate to the larger groups through the forced perspective of one on one interaction with a member of that group.
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