Fires in The Mirror - Plot Synopsis

Plot Synopsis

The play is a series of monologues attained from interviews Anna Deavere Smith did with people involved in the Crown Heights crisis. Each one is titled with the person’s name as well as a key phrase from each interview, which tries to sum up what that person was trying to say or an important aspect of their monologue. There are a total of 29 monologues in Fires in the Mirror and each one focuses on a different character’s opinion and point of view of the events and issues surrounding the crisis. Plot, as defined by David Rush in A Student Guide to Play Analysis, is “the deliberate selection and arrangement of the incidents that the playwright presents” (35). Throughout Fires in the Mirror, every monologue is referring to the same crisis and incidents surrounding, and while they do each have something in common, they are uniquely different. Fires in the Mirror does not follow the typical seven parts of a well-made play. The seven parts include: a state of equilibrium, an inciting incident, a point of attack, the rising action, the climax, a resolution, and finally a new state of equilibrium. Instead, Fires in the Mirror is a collection of individual monologues, brought together by Anna Deavere Smith. And while there is no linear plot with developing characters throughout its entirety, there is some logic to how Smith lays out and clumps together the monologues.