THE FIRE LAST TIME: "Fires in the Mirror" at Mustard Seed Theatre
BY: ANDREA BRAUN - THEATRE ARTS CORRESPONDENT
"Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night." Margo Channing was talking about a party; Anna Deveare Smith describes four horrific days and nights that comprised the period of the Crown Heights riots in 1991, and the ride she takes us on in Fires in the Mirror is bumpy, indeed.
Mustard Seed’s version of the play is cut down from the original, but perhaps it’s more accurate to say it is streamlined. And instead of one person representing all the characters (as Deveare Smith does when she performs the piece) here there are two: The amazing team of Michelle Hand and Rory Lipede. They perform monologues from people both famous and ordinary as they give their own accounts of what happened, a Rashomon-like journey, as everyone has an opinion and a side. There are no casual observers here.
The bare facts of the situation are that in the summer of 1991, a car jumped the curb and killed a 7-year-old boy. The driver was a Lubavitcher Jew; the boy, Gavin Cato, was black. Three hours later, a young Hasidic scholar from Australia was stabbed to death by a group of black men. He was Yankel Rosenbaum. These two factions live side-by-side in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York, but seldom interact. On this day and for the next four, they were joined in rage. Deveare Smith does play a bit loose with at least one fact, and that is that she seems to connect the boy’s death with the man’s, i.e., cause and effect. From historical accounts, that isn’t accurate. However, it doesn’t matter much because Gavin’s death and the ensuing police ineptitude plus some serious misunderstandings about emergency medical care caused people to riot in the streets. Yankel was collateral damage, whatever version of the story you believe.
Lipede and Hand act their characters with conviction and an awesome command of their voices and bodies. They assume genders and races not their own, and they do it all with quick changes into a jacket, wig, hat, or whatever bit of clothing helps to limn the people they portray. Kirsten Wylder’s work on costumes is brilliant. We f meet Robert Sherman from the Commission on Human Rights (Lipede) first, giving a pedantic talk on the lack of language to communicate about race. He’s boring, but right. Next we hear from an "Anonymous Lubavitcher Woman" (Hand) who offers her opinion, punctuated by a long, funny anecdote about having to fudge a bit to observe the Sabbath. And so it goes, back and forth, throughout the hour onstage.
Highlights include Lipede’s Al Sharpton who preached Gavin’s funeral (and fills us in on the origin of his hairstyle and connection to James Brown) and "Anonymous Young Man I" (a particularly biased witness). Hand shines as Roslyn (Roz) Malamud, a voice of reason despite herself, and Carmel Cato, the broken-hearted Guyanian father of Gavin. But really, the women are amazing throughout the show. Lori Adams has directed them to some of the finest work I’ve seen them do. And it should be noted that, while serious in intent, the play does not lack humor in execution.
Courtney Sanazaro’s versatile set occupies about a third of the rectangular room and the seats are raked in rows opposite it. There are bits and pieces of brick walls, street detritus—all kinds of objects. Two television sets, circa early ‘90s vintage, are used to identify each character who is speaking and they show slides of the riots, as well as provide frames for a final tribute to the fallen. Kareem Deanes handled the video, as well as the extremely effective sound design which incorporates a wide range of musical styles to set the mood for the show and help delineate each character. Michael Sullivan’s lights are notable for the fact that in this plot, there have to be dark spaces so the actors can locate and adjust their costumes and not be seen by the audience. It works magically well.
Fires in the Mirror is an appropriate selection to kick off Black History Month, of course. Most of all, it reminds us of the vital importance of keeping the conversation going among the disparate groups that make up the United States of America, whether our language is yet adequate to the task or not. We have no choice because our children’s lives, literally, depend on it.
Fires in the Mirror has a short run, only two weekends, but there are some daytime performances, and a discussion follows each. Call 314-719-8060 or visit www.mustardseedtheatre.com for details.
