The Good-Enough Setting of Anna Deavere Smith: Restaging Crown Heights

Anna Deavere Smith developed a genre of theatre that combines journalism and social commentary in order to investigate cultural conflict. Her play Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities is a solo performance that addresses group trauma and the task of racial healing in contemporary America. This essay analyzes how this one-woman docudrama intervenes into the psychodynamics of the public response to the Crown Heights crisis. Specifically I want to consider how Smith's restaging creates what DW Winnicott calls a “facilitating environment” for the Black and Jewish people of the neighborhood and “potential space” for social change.