Title of the work: “My Mirror”
Author: María Gabriela Méndez
Argument: Small play, especially aimed at high school students, about a girl who feels insecure about her body. She wants to be thinner and more beautiful, so she has a conversation with her mirror.
3 Characters:
- Narrator (Male voice).
- Sofia (Insecure girl)
- Mirror (Must be a young boy’s voice)
Note: In brackets () are suggestions of non-verbal expressions (acotations).
Environment: A modern girl’s room. Basically contains a chair, a full-length mirror, lots of clothes and shoes strewn about the place, and plenty of makeup, hair dryer, flat iron, and other women’s accessories.
Narrator: Sofia has been invited to a friend’s birthday party, she has to get ready to go out and is quite worried. At the party will be the boy she has liked since the first day of High School, she has never been able to get his attention.
Sofia thinks she is too simple, and that is why she has not been able to get the attention of the handsome boy who has been so much in her thoughts.
Sofia is in trouble, time is running out, she must be perfect in just a few hours and she can’t get the combination of wardrobe, makeup and hairstyle that will take away her simplicity and make her really attractive for the occasion.
Single Act
Sofia: (She enters the room quite annoyed with herself, she has a conflict, she sits down hard on a chair in front of her mirror) I don’t know what to do, my body, my height, my hair, my clothes…eeeeverything!!!! (pauses, while she looks at herself with dissatisfaction, then she puts on a jean jacket and looks at herself in the mirror, she pulls her hair back, lets it down again, poses in front of the mirror, tries to find an angle she likes) – I’m not going to find anything I like, there’s no way around it: I’m fat (Pause: she puts her hand on her waist again and again as if she wanted to reduce centimeters in diameter magically and immediately), -short (Pause: she stands on tiptoes, tries to jump, tries on a pair of heels, looks at them in the mirror, takes them off and throws them with a slight violence of annoyance with herself. Then she sits down on the chair again and leans back with a gesture of exhaustion).
Narrator: Sofia thinks that no one is listening to her, she is alone in the room, who could be listening to her strong criticisms and her outburst of insecurity and dissatisfaction with her physical appearance. But suddenly she hears a voice that seems to come out of nowhere.
Sofia: A ghost!!!???? A spirit! What voice could this be?
Mirror: Why are you being so hard on yourself? Looking at you, and wow, I’ve seen people pass by here. And you’re not the worst thing I’ve seen… (Pause), -Sorry, I meant you’re not as bad as you say.
Sofia: (She gets scared when she hears this voice but she is curious to know where it comes from, so she starts searching the whole room) Who is this, whoever it is must come out at once? (She takes the hairdryer to use it as a weapon and starts searching the room again) – Let’s see, enough of hiding, who is wherever he is? (She wants to look confident, ready to face whoever it is but at the same time a look and a voice of some panic gives her away, not so much, but yes, she is a little scared).
Mirror: It’s me girl, stop with the scary cop show, I’m the mirror. Do people think you’re going to be here putting on your worst facades, or when they’re at their “best”, here, talking in front of me without me being able to answer even once? Well, I’m tired, now you’re going to have to hear me. (This must sound slightly annoyed but confident. The mirror is a male character, a bit ironic in his way of speaking).
(Sofia turns to look at the mirror and puts the hairdryer aside.)
Sofia: Oh, it’s you, it’s ok (Pause: she sits down on her chair in front of the mirror and relaxes and looks at the floor, a bit disheveled in the way she sits, but suddenly she looks at the mirror again quickly) -You know, there is something very strange here. (Turning to the mirror she says) – Since when do you talk, and why haven’t you done it until now… I have asked you so many questions, you never answer. I have needed your opinion so many times, why haven’t you been there when I needed you?
Mirror: Too many questions to be the first time we talk, don’t you think?
Sofia: I don’t think so, so many questions I have asked you without answer, always without answer, and I have forgiven you because I thought you didn’t speak, but you do!
Mirror: But don’t change the subject, I was telling you that you’re even a pretty girl, you should wear anything, I think that almost everything you’ve worn suits you. Ah well, No… Don’t ever wear those black pearled pants again… Burn it please, it makes me dizzy just seeing you wearing it. (Pause) But… generally speaking I think you look very good.
Sofia: I don’t agree. I’m fat (as she touches her waist).
Mirror: No, you’re not… I think the red dress looks great on you.
Sofia: What about my hair? It’s a mess, it’s dry and dull (she tries to comb her hair and lets it down again).
Mirror: I like your hair, even before you burn it so much.
Sofia: Well no, I’m not even the right size… You haven’t noticed that I wear these heels (she picks up some heels from the floor and throws them back), – and these (she picks up some others from the floor and puts them back in place), – and these (she picks up some others that are lying on the floor behind her back, sees them and puts them back in place), – although they are very uncomfortable, but I try to look like Carla, Jessica and Joaquina. They are tall, slender, and they always know what to wear.
Mirror: Oh no, girl, what you are, you’re really envious. I’m getting tired of you.
Sofia: It’s like this, I have to stop eating and do exercises until I die (she lies down on the floor to look at the ceiling, with a thoughtful expression).
Mirror: You know what? Well yes, if what you want is to listen to your defects I will help you. I think you certainly need to get into the GYM because your ass is, (pause) – let’s say, (pause) – plain.
Sofia: (sits down with discomfort and looks at him) What? Not like that either, I like my ass (and looks at herself in the mirror with pleasure).
Mirror: And looking at it well, I think you need some hair extensions because you always wear it short and that’s not fashionable.
Sofia: Oh no, my hair looks great like this (as she combs her hair with pleasure).
Mirror: And… I think breast implants would be, let’s say… necessary, because you are like a swimmer: Nothing in front and nothing in the back.
Sofia: (puts her hand on her waist and gets annoyed) Well, no boy, if you knew that I have been observed in the streets and I have been told that they are beautiful. Oh mirror, you need glasses. You’re making me tired with your criticisms. You should be mute again.
Mirror: And don’t even think of wearing that blue dress, the one that makes your legs look like a heron, because the herons and you, (pause), – excuse me, I think you beat the herons with those skinny legs.
Sofia: (looks at her legs in surprise and begins to look at them in the mirror with pleasure and empathy) I love my legs, and now that you say so, I already found what I’ll wear tonight. The blue dress… and (Pause: she looks for it among all the clothes scattered around) – And… I already know the shoes that go with this dress. (She searches among all her shoes and gets the ones she likes)… – Well, my hair, I’ll wear it loose, I think I’m liking the way it looks – (grumbles) – and how long, this mirror has no good taste, really. (She runs to the hairdresser and goes back to the mirror) – I’ll wear these hair ties. And that’s it (leaves the scene to change clothes).
Narrator: It seems that Sofia made sense of her figure, it no longer seemed to her that she was so fat, so simple, or so small, as she thought before her conversation with the mirror. Sofia had an encounter with her reality, I think that everything she saw as defects began to be virtues for her.
Sofia: (She enters the scene but does not speak, she only brings her blue dress, her heels, sits on the hairdresser and begins to make herself up, while the narrator continues talking).
Narrator: Curiously, our dear mirror never spoke to Sofia again, and she doesn’t miss it. Maybe it was her thoughts talking all the time. I don’t know, but whoever it was has made a real change in her.
Sofia: (Finishes her make-up, looks for a perfume, puts some on in front of the mirror, then looks for her purse and goes back to the mirror) So no butt, small breasts and heron legs. (She smiles mischievously and leaves the scene, confident and heading for the party).
Narrator: I think many of us need a character like “The Mirror” in our lives, to allow us to see what we have before our eyes about ourselves. Social prototypes deceive us that the uniqueness and originality in which we were crafted makes us as attractive as we want to see and recognize with our own perception.