Mirror Images

Anna Deavre's one man show, Fires in the Mirror, uses the rage created from racially motivated violence to articulate the similarities in the experiences of seemingly opposite factions.  One point in the performance which articulates the author's message quite clearly is the progression of two successive monologues, "Seven Verses" and "Isaac", which express the opinions of two individuals on opposite sides of the 1991 Crown Heights controversy: an African American man, Minister Conrad Mohammed, and a Jewish woman, Letty Cottin Porebin.

In the first scene Minister Conrad Mohammed, describes the evils of slavery as being the greatest crime in the history of humanity, explicitly mentioning that it was a larger injustice than the Holocaust.  In the following passage, Letty Cottin tells the tale of her Uncle, whom was force to participate in the gas chamber to escape the holocaust.  

What is interesting about the two successive scenes is that despite Conrad Mohammed’s conviction that his race has endured greater suffering and is thus god’s people, the suffering felt by each group seems similar.  In fact, much of the suffering that Conrad associates with slavery was present in the Holocaust as well (murder, rape, torture, ect.).  Specifically, loss of identity, which Conrad asserts was among the most significant legacies of slavery is clearly present in Letty’s anecdote as well as, Isaac was made to exterminate his people along side the Nazi’s.

The similarities in the two stories allow Deavre to conjure up the image of a mirror, in that although the two parties are on opposite side of the pane, the struggles that, which they have endured are very similar (as in the case of the 1991 Crown Heights incident, the Holocaust, and other racially motivated crimes).  Such imagery is amplified by Deavre's portrayal of both roles and helps suggest that we are all hurt by the fires of hate.