★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Octagon at Gluttony. 21 Feb 2025
Brought to you by SA’s own Gravity & Other Myths, The Mirror is an outstanding show, and demonstrates that circus can be sophisticated and challenging physical theatre.
What does one see when one looks in a mirror? We expect to see a perfect copy of ourselves, but perfection is illusory, and perhaps we really want to see something else - something more flattering, more exciting, or something that challenges what we believe to be true about ourselves.
The Mirror explores all these things through an exquisite display of gymnastic and circus skills which is firmly held together with classy choreography and a razor-sharp narrative that is sometimes sung and sometimes executed with the feel that it is being extemporised, but it’s not.
The whole thing evokes danger. It’s one thing to execute risky routines that feel ‘safe’, because they are performed so well, but its something quite different to inject a real sense of drama and vulnerability. The troupe does this so well, and it is always exciting and on-the-edge-of your-seat stuff. The action is played in variable lighting, which is visually exciting and adds to the sense of danger. (How can they be so accurate in what they do and be safe when surely, they can’t clearly see! But of course, they can. It’s clever illusion.)
A highlight of the generously long 70-minute show is the creation of a human bridge: it’s a display of brute strength, grace, poise and balance, and it evokes whoops and cheers from the audience. Another highlight is a mashup of an almost countless number of songs by a vocalist that cleverly scaffolds various physical routines and is all the while being projected on a screen – it’s one protracted hedonistic selfie, and its oh so entertainingly projected.
This is sophisticated physical theatre, and it comes with a warning – children must be accompanied by an adult. Yes, there’s a reasonably amount of buff flesh, it’s cheeky (pun intended) and provocative, but always tasteful and inoffensive.
This is Fringe at its best!
Kym Clayton
When: 21 Feb to 23 Mar
Where: The Octagon at Gluttony
Bookings: gluttony.net.au
