ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: IN HER OWN WORDS: FIRES IN THE MIRROR: CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN AND OTHER IDENTITIES (RADIO)
Summary
This arts documentary provides insight into "Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities," a one-woman drama by Anna Deavere Smith. "Fires" analyzed the racial tension which enveloped the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights in 1991 after a car driven by a Hasidic man killed a seven-year-old African-American boy, Gavin Cato, and rabbinical student Yankel Rosenbaum was murdered in the riotuous aftermath. Highlights of the documentary include the following: Smith comments on why she believes people can cause change by communicating; explains that the pitch and tone of a speech is as important as its meaning; analyzes the "waltz-like" quality of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats"; comments on the importance of theater's being "controversial"; recalls a college experience which made her understand that people perceive language differently; acknowledges that her goal in the the theater is to change the concept of the American family; and explains her objections to the "melting pot" concept. In addition, Robert Brustein, the drama critic for the New Republic, offers comments about theater and Smith's contributions to the modern stage. Smith performs several pieces from the show, including the following: "Mirrors" (about a physicist from M.I.T. explaining the perfect mirror), "The Coup" (a woman who believes her Jewish son was safer in the Soviet Union during the coup than in Crown Heights during the riot), "Bad Boy," (a neighborhood boy insists that the police have collared the wrong person for the Rosenbaum slaying) "Wigs" (a Lubavitch woman comments on scarifices made to be a part of a community) and "Me and James's Thang" (political activist Al Sharpton recalling how James Brown influenced his hairstyle).
Cataloging of this program was made possible by The Hearst Corporation, 1998.
Details
- NETWORK: APR American Public Radio
- DATE: 1994/04/xx
- RUNNING TIME: 0:57:17
- COLOR/B&W: N/A
- CATALOG ID: R:10684_001
- GENRE: Radio - Arts Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Brooklyn, N.Y.; Theater
- SERIES RUN: APR - Radio, 1994
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Connie Blazik
- Mary K. Blige
- Anna Deavere Smith
- Robert Brustein
- Gavin Cato
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Yankel Rosenbaum
- Al Sharpton