Six Characters in Search of an Author

An actual mirror only appears once, when the Step-Daughter and the Father ask to add the mirror to the set when they are staging the encounter in the brothel, but the idea of mirrors and mirroring recurs throughout the play. The actors mirror the characters, highlighting differences and revealing misperceptions. For example, when parts are being handed out, the Step-Daughter has difficulty seeing “that woman there” as herself (26). She clarifies she is not criticizing the Leading Lady at this point, but rather she looks at the Leading Lady and “can’t see” herself “at all” (26).

When the Son discovers the Juvenile Actor watching and mimicking him, he asks the Manager if he hasn’t “yet perceived it isn’t possible to live in front of a mirror which not only freezes us with the image of ourselves, but throws our likeness back at us with a horrible grimace” (50). Like the Father, the Son finds that these representations reduce them to one part of themselves in one moment in time.