Sydney Reviews

Turns out, Leyla and Joel’s white wedding is a red herring.

On a set bedecked in nuptials nuance, bridal bunting, nervous energy groomsmen and stately celebrant, Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror begins with a marriage masquerade.

But we are not here to witness the wedlock of a couple but a deadlock of state sanctioned censorship and storytelling truth.

Matrimony gives way to mutiny as the sham ceremony evolves into an illegal underground performance of a play, a dissident text aimed at the propaganda  propagated by a totalitarian regime.

Adem, a mechanic and former soldier, has written a play and naively, yet dutifully, submitted it for consideration to the Ministry of Culture. He’s called to the Ministry office of career bureaucrat, Čelik, who suspects Adem has potential – if only he can learn to write in the state-approved, patriotic way, instead of telling uncomfortable truths.

This guidance has worked before with another playwright, Bax, who rose to National Treasure on the back of his “restructred” debut play. Can Adem be manipulated, his pointed fingers manicured into something palatable to the political class? Will he join the other mutilated marionettes now marinating in their own mediocrity or will he make a stand and risk persecution and prosecution? 

Steeped in meta-theatricality, A Mirror prompts us to reflect on the status of storytelling, of its place in creating a culture, its manipulation into myth, its power to prick and to prod.

Benevolent director Margaret Thanos guides her cast with a disciplined blithe spirit through this masterpiece of political satire – Faisal Hamza, as the sometimes frazzled Adem, congenital eavesdropper and astute observer, Yalin Ozucelik as the unctuous Čelik, Eden Falk, as Bax, hallowed hack hollowed out by the sale of his soul to the state, and Rose Riley as Mei, an apparatchik who has an astonishing epiphany.

Set and costume by Angelina Daniel is a splendid cross between realism and theatrical dress up, Phoebe Pilcher’s lighting superbly creates the myriad shades of the text and Deniel Herten’s sound design quickens the pulse.

Admonitory in intent, entertaining in its execution, A Mirror generates theatrical excitement from its beginning to its explosive climax. To peer into this looking glass is compelling, funny and frightening.