A Mirror

What’s creepy about the world of this new British play, where all cultural and political works are reforged into nationalist messages to help drive soldiers to the frontline, is that it’s so apparent now in so many countries. And yet authoritarians, like Putin and Trump, and weak popularists have long known that controlling culture and storytelling is vital to controlling their people.

As the actors begin staging A Mirror, we are ordered suddenly to follow their cue and pretend instead to be at a wedding, as armed security bang at the doors. The hoax works but the bullies – and the fake wedding - will soon be back.

Sam Holcroft’s interesting, sometimes bamboozling, play introduces a fascinating, morally compromised pragmatist, a Director of Culture who instead of reporting unco-operative artists to the Minister for Prosecution guides ‘his’ writers to tell rousing, heroic tales.  Proudly running workshops and co-editing sessions in his office, Yalin Ozucelik is outstanding as the insidious, manipulative cultural controller, Mr Celik, who thinks he’s doing good.  

But his charm turns to anger when young first-time playwright, Adem (Faisal Hamza), defies Mr Celik, even in his office, and continues to write about realities he overhears – raw gossip in his tenement building, known corruption by the warmongers and even this very interrogation by Mr Celik.  Our bureaucrat brings in a once wayward, now national playwright to show how war heroism must be celebrated, to find that Bax (Aden Falk) is now a broken alcoholic. 

Even Celik’s secretary, once prim and obedient (Rose Riley) avoids Mr Celik’s come-ons and goes her own way, ultimately into the arms of Adem and his poor man’s idealism. Like in Russia, they and Bax have all served in war and know the truth Mr Celik wants wiped away – for everyone’s sakes, he says.

Holcroft’s dystopian satire is often funny and its story of cultural control is now explicit in Australia.  Margarat Thanos’ admirable cast is often distant, like actors behind gaux, probably because, as we discover, the reality changes and they are not just actors.  The play’s shifting conceptualism explodes at a rushed and garbled end as the world turns more brutal.  Designer Angelina Daniel uses the outline of a box set, for Celik’s office and other scenes; it could be any country. 

Holcroft’s message is ultimately simple and obvious; and she illustrates well how theatre can be perfect to explore different versions and perceptions of reality.  Once the playwright ensures she is taking her audience with her, she could aim for deeper political scenarios.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Brett Boardman