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Elizabeth Crawford

Professor Tocantins

TA 207

21 November 2019

Fires in the Mirror: Asymmetry and Angularity

Anna Deavere Smith’s play, Fires in the Mirror, performed by the University of

Louisville theatre company presented an elegant and authentic explanation of what it means for a

play to be asymmetric in the eyes of Zora Neale Hurston’s Characteristics of Negro Expression.

The play is a work of asymmetry. As characters from the African American and Jewish cultures

tell the story of the car accident, the narrative is inherently skewed towards the latter. This is not

an act of bias, however. The intentional choice to characterize monologues in this way is

fulfilling the characteristic of asymmetry. The abrupt changes from character to character to

audience input to song to dance reveal a telling sign of African American performance. The

unpredictability of this piece and conflicting narrations appeal to the curiosity of the audience.

This asymmetry is supported by another characteristic of Negro expression: angularity.

The viewpoints signify “shape” as a recognizable and necessary aspect to performance. The

shape of the stage, props, and furniture all favored an asymmetric presentation and reinforced the

unease felt by the characters during this struggle for social justice and equity. The placement of

the chairs and tables on the stage intentionally pull the audience into the frail society that

surrounds this tragedy. The constant movement of these pieces informed the audience that shape

and control is not promised a promised aspect of life. Within their reality, security is a luxury. In

the beginning of the play, it was the asymmetric and unsettling holes in the bricks that revealed
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the child’s bicycle, a symbol of the lost innocence of this group. As they each told their story to

the audience, the characters always stood on one side of the stage or another. They never blocked

the blemish in the brick but rather accentuated it with their own angularity and conflict.

Within Fires in the Mirror at the University of Louisville’s theatre production, angularity

and the power of asymmetry not only brought the audience into the stories but also brought the

characters into their own fearful asymmetry with the world around them. In the tumultuous time

of the Crown Heights tragedy, each person of Jewish and African American origin faced

dilemmas of how to process the unthinkable and deal with aggression. By telling these narratives

one-by-one with all of their quirks and opposing viewpoints, Anna Deavere Smith instilled

conflict within every character, story, and moment of the drama. This theatre company made the

effort to physicalize this conflict in the visible asymmetry and angularity of this production. For

these reasons, this play can be recognized as an outstanding representation of African American

theatre.