Style
The style of Fires in the Mirror is a unique, post-modern play. Fires in the Mirror is a collection of multiple voices and points of views. It is a hybrid of theater and journalism. Smith went out and interviewed all of the characters and recorded their words, their physical appearance, and their surroundings to give an accurate description of who these people were. Afterward, she arranged the words to fit into shorter monologues, while maintaining the essence of what they were trying to put forth in their words and emotions.
Smith is very detailed in how each interview was attained. She gives information as to where each one was done, including the settings and environment, other people that were near, and when the interviews took place. This adds emphasis to the fact that this play is very immediate and real. Nothing is fake or made up and everything is 100% real life.
The play is written out in verse. Smith tries to emulate through the use of lines, ellipses, and other notation, exactly how things were said in each interview. This adds emotion to plain text and when read, gives evidence into how things were actually said by each character during the interviews.
Fires in the Mirror is a post-modern play. According to David Rush, characteristics of a postmodern play include there being no “author”, its purpose is to engage the audience rather than show, there may be multiple narratives interacting with each other, the structure departs from the conventional play pattern, and the play is usually fragmented. Fires in the Mirror encompasses all of these characteristics.
Read more about this topic: Fires In The Mirror
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“The flattering, if arbitrary, label, First Lady of the Theatre, takes its toll. The demands are great, not only in energy but eventually in dramatic focus. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a star to occupy an inch of space without bursting seams, cramping everyone else’s style and unbalancing a play. No matter how self-effacing a famous player may be, he makes an entrance as a casual neighbor and the audience interest shifts to the house next door.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)