Prologue Theatre: A Mirror

The Program was for the fake wedding complete
with a guest gift bag!

There is a lot of new theatre out there, and honestly, I tend to give most of it somewhere between a B- and C-.  It's derivative.  It's cliche.  It's formulaic.  It's idiosyncratic to the point that its message is irrelevant.  The characters are flat.  So you sit through a story and when it's over there's not that much left to ponder, except perhaps why did I pay to give up two hours experiencing this.  It's a little bit like fishing.  Sometimes you catch a really great fish, but often you don't and still you can appreciate all the incidentals, right?  There's the river, the fresh air, your friend/s, the warm sun, the cool breeze, etc.  So even if a play's plot is not so great, you can appreciate the sets, costumes, props, light & sound, the actors who bring their A-games even to C- scripts.  So that's why I rarely find myself regretting going to the theatre.

And then there are those other times.  The time you bring in the most magnificent Rainbow Trout the Au Sable River has ever given up, and your dad is so proud of you, and later the old girl as fresh as new mown grass roasts over an open fire and flakes off the bone like manna from Heaven.  "A Mirror" by Sam Holcroft is like that trout.  Premiered in London in 2023, it's a relatively new work that is both sharp in its intentions, but soft enough to allow for some atypical character development.  

Prologue Theatre has been around now for about 10 years.  It is the lovechild of Jason Tamborini, who directed this production.  The intention of Prologue is to create interactive post-production experiences in which ideas can be discussed.  To this end, every show comes with an online forum.  "A Mirror" tells the story of a playwright trapped in a totalitarian society who is forced to stage his plays in clandestine ways.  So you enter the "theatre" which is decked out like a church chapel (and which is literally staged in modestly sized storage space on the backside of a CVS drugstore anchored mini-strip mall of just three business.  Parking is in the rear as is the entrance.  It is the most intimate of theatre spaces, perhaps in all of the DMV.  Previously they have found room in the schedule of the Atlas Performing Arts Center in DC, and the very first production I ever saw with in the recital space of a converted circa 1930's movie theatre on Georgia Avenue, NW!  And that's when I knew it was love at first sight!

While this little company might seem inconsequential in the big sea that is the DMV theatre scene--it always manages to punch above its weight.  And nothing proves this more than the fact the Maboud Ebrahimzadeh held the leading role of Celik.  Maboud is one of the most amazing actors I have ever seen, and I've seen him in over a dozen shows.  To experience his talent in such a small and close-up space is a gift I would have paid for under any circumstances.  And he's so good, that I cannot help but believe his performance raise the other's work around him.  And I don't mean to be undermining the role of Jason Tamborini as director.  There's just something magical that can happen when the chemistry is right.  And to that end the rest of the primary cast: Jordan Brown, Lily Burka and Shaan Sharma were pitch perfect.  Here's the ticker--this was a two and half hour production that never lost my attention, if at times pushed the boundaries of my apprehension as I aloud the ideas to sink in and join an internal dialogue around the issues of censorship, honesty, courage and survival.  

On stage through May 18th.  Honestly, go.  This is the sort of opportunity that doesn't come along very often.