Craig Lauzon, Jonelle Gunderson, Paul Smith & Nabil Traboulsi in A Mirror | Photo by Kendra Epik
I went into A Mirror knowing practically nothing about it. Though you’re likely to understand it as cunning deception, the show page on ARC’s website mischievously promotes this as a “wedding.” When you arrive, the venue is decked out for this ersatz event, complete with invitations and a guest book to sign. As the wedding commences, the place is buzzing with anticipation. We catch glimpses of excited, adorably awkward looks between the bride, groom and his best man. Even the registrar vibrates with nervous energy.
Just as we’re noticing that the admissions of consent seem a bit odd, this quaint set-up suddenly collapses into a multi-layered narrative and, though it requires minimal participation from its audience, one of the most effectively immersive pieces of theatre I’ve seen. From here, folks, I’m going to spoil the primary conceit of A Mirror. If you don’t already know the premise and want the purist experience possible, stop here and go see it. But know that I found it masterfully structured, carefully paced and deeply chilling.
Now that you have been duly warned…
This is a dystopian thriller. Though it honours the classic tropes of the genre, it never feels derivative. You eventually recognize the Orwellian vibes, but they emerge so naturally out of the situation you barely notice the creeping dread until the situation has become dire. The focus here, on theatre creation as a window into an oppressive totalitarian government, also gives this a refreshing, uncomfortably familiar specificity.
This sham wedding is the sort of ruse employed by indie thespians of this society to keep their activism clandestine. We, the audience, are complicit in this act of defiance as we watch this unfold. We understand it to be one of many stories that critique a regime that came to power after a great war, stifling any expression that deviates from the party line.
The Minister of Culture, Celik (Nabil Traboulsi), has a new protégé—the humble, rather naive mechanic-turned-writer, Adem (Paul Smith). After submitting a play to the ministry, he’s been plucked from squalor and obscurity to be be groomed for state-sanctioned theatre! He’s got a knack for vivid dialogue. His text, we discover, is essentially transcripts, that hold a mirror up to the reality that surrounds him. The scenario he submitted detailed interactions between the “whores and cripples” of his community. The colourful characters and their vulgarity are politically dangerous, the sort of thing that would land him in a re-education camp, but Celik wants to cultivate his natural talent and shape it into great art.
Mei (Jonelle Gunderson), a fledgling official in the ministry, gets caught up in this enterprise; as does the current celebrated ministry darling, Bax (Craig Lauzon), whose raw talent and integrity have long since been buried under years of comfortable success as a propagandist. As the play hurtles elegantly towards its awful conclusion, Mei and Adem bond over their shared infantry experience, Bax is challenged to unpack his current attitudes and Celik pulls rank to maintain the status quo.
The play’s pivotal discussion of art, as a reflection of reality versus a purposeful construct, is nuanced. This isn’t a simplistic portrait of tyranny. As he states with emphatic sincerity, Celik’s ambition—to establish truly rousing yet politically purposeful art—is rather compelling. Bax’s dedication to craft and creative intention is also genuinely valuable. When they all act out his state-mythologized version of an infantry uprising, ending with a rendition of their national anthem, it has a certain logic and beauty. We know its bullshit, but we’re caught up anyway. We want to be galvanized and uplifted.
Is art meant to reflect reality? Should it be a constructed to inspire? Can it do both? Where are the boundaries and what do they mean? Sam Holcroft’s play understands that stories are important, that they help shape our understanding of the world and its people, for better or worse.
As the play we’re witnessing is disrupted, in jarring episodes, by potential outside threats, the players maintain a delicate balance between theatrical artifice and emotive sincerity. Throughout, the performative facades manifest and subside in fascinating undulations.
Traboulsi’s Celik, persuasively authoritative yet impassioned and charming, is the most deliberately stilted portrayal with its grand gesturing—a sly nod towards the contrived nature of this whole event. His shift from affable to menacing is effective. And the gloves, such a clichéd villain accessory, are more than mere affectation, they conceal a pivotal truth. Lauzon is very endearing, both in Bax’s self-satisfied bluster and as his eventual drunken and deflated spectacle. Gunderson and Smith give offbeat, tender performances. One of my favourite scenes between them is when Mei pays Adem a furtive visit. It’s both funny and touching to see him narrate her movements, in his trademark fashion, as she escalates the intimacy.
Director Tamara Vuckovic’s understated production, with its interwoven layers of emotional truth and performative distance, has purposefully hokey trappings. Nick Blais’ unassuming, abstracted set features some gauzy fabric panels (pulled up and away from us once the “wedding” becomes a “play”) that only just barely hide the industrial metal structure that looms ominously in the background.
The conclusion, in which all of these tense layers of reality and fiction converge, contains a devastating final revelation. This sort of conceit is difficult to execute as effectively as Holcroft and this performing company have. I felt it, acutely.
A Mirror
March 10 to 28, 2026
918 Bathurst Centre
(918 Bathurst Street)
2 hours (no intermission)
Paul Smith & Nabil Traboulsi in A Mirror | Photo by Kendra Epik