A Mirror is not going to be a cosy night at the theatre. Yes, it has a starry cast – including Jonny Lee Miller, Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds and Top Boy’s Micheal Ward. But Sam Holcroft’s latest play, about making theatre in a country where art is state censored, is very cleverly designed to keep the audience on edge. That’s the whole point, says Holcroft: “We take it for granted that a night out at the theatre is a pleasant experience. But I wanted to give the audience the tiniest taste of what it might be like to attend a forbidden play in an authoritarian regime.”
When I speak with the company a few weeks into rehearsals, director Jeremy Herrin describes Holcroft’s play as a “Russian doll series of plays within plays”. There are lots of twists and turns – proper shocks that must remain shocking – so our conversation gets a little bit cryptic. Reynolds, who is very quiet and very thoughtful, is still trying to figure the play out: “I read it in one hit. It’s very thrilling and there are so many layers to it. It’s not a simple play to perform. We’re constantly trying to unpick things and get in deeper.”
