Fires in the Mirror

I think that we would lose so much of the story by removing those monologues from the script.  When I first began to read the play, I just didn’t get it.  This was before I read the prompt from Dr. Fletcher and understood how the play was originally meant to be performed.  Also, I absolutely didn’t understand what the show was about.  Then I paused what I was doing and tried to figure out what the play was about.  When I began reading it again, it made much more sense.  And I think that there was so much purpose in Anna Deavere Smith’s choices to include the monologues that seemed more random.  It gives so much more insight into who the people actually are.  It takes the focus off of the issue of the riots and brings it into the deeper roots of where the ones involved, impacted by, or just observing the incident are coming from.

Hearing from the Lubavitcher Woman explains her perspective of the others.  It shows us that she doesn’t hate them, she just acknowledges that they are different.  Getting to know the Anonymous Girl doesn’t tell us any bit of information about the riots, but just more information on how they view different races.  Even “Big Mo” doesn’t focus in on the riots, but more on the culture in her world.  I think that these different random monologues are a very important sort of preface to introducing the serious issue of a boy getting hit by a car and a man getting stabbed.  It introduces you into the world that this play is set in rather than just plunging head first into these big issues.  If these parts were excluded from the plot, I think we would lose a large amount of the context that is a huge part of the story.