Mirror Game

Photo from the play Mirror Game

Mirror Game works like this: Maggie’s in love with Bob, Bob’s in love with Sarah, Sarah’s in love with Luke, Luke beats on Sarah. Through it all, we see their parents as giant shadows that loom over their lives.

I had no idea what I was going to write when I started researching Mirror Game. I was invited to take over a senior drama class once a week at Gladstone High in Vancouver, and spent the time talking with the kids and doing some improvisation with them. After a month or so, I still had no clue what I was going to write about. Then one of girls walked in with a black eye. I asked her what happened. “My boyfriend hit me,” she said. I asked her why and she shrugged: “I was late.”

So I decided to write the play about that.


Reviews

..a formidable statement on family and the long-term effects it has.—Toronto Sun

…conscientious, honest, responsible and entertaining.—Vancouver Province

But by far the best play for young audiences published in 1992 is Mirror Game. Dennis Foon has long been impressive as a playwright, as co-founder and artistic director of Green Thumb Theatre in Vancouver, and as creator of “Feeling Yes, Feeling No,” the influential social intervention work on sexual abuse. As in all of his work, Foon impresses here by his refusal to condescend to audiences that may be young, but are not stupid. He writes with intelligence, wit, irreverence, and complexity. Like most of his work, Mirror Game is fun, but not frivolous; it is up to date without making embarrassing efforts to be trendy; and it deals with an astounding number of serious issues – from verbal, physical, and sexual harassment to parental neglect and alcoholism – but does so naturally, entertainingly, and without oppressive earnestness. Mirror Game is an extraordinary play.
—Richard Paul Knowles, University of Toronto Quarterly


Visit Playwrights Canada Press to order a copy

Contact Michael Petrasek at Kensington Literary Representation for performance rights information

First produced by Green Thumb Theatre.

1989 Vancouver Jesse Award for Outstanding Production for Young Audiences