The Man in the Mirror

Kwantlen grad’s one man play tackles the subjects of self-image, self-worth, and acceptance

With nothing but a stage prop and his own experiences, Kwantlen psychology alumnus Kevin Kokoska plays the roles of two very different looking young men, both trying to overcome harmful insecurities and perceptions of self-worth.

The Mirror Test, written by Kokoska and told in roughly the span of an hour and a half, draws from his experience working at a “wellness centre” for overweight youth in California this past summer. But while the basis of the narrative derives from Kokoska’s real experiences, for the sake of telling an engaging story the volume of the dramatization of the characters was turned up a notch.

“I was taking some themes that I thought were important and revving them up to make a point,” says Kokoska. This, however, did little to subtract any sense of realism or authenticity to the story—in fact it was quite the opposite. Kokoska brings a sharp wit to the stage. For the majority of the play, which deals with some heavy subject matter that many may find relatable, the audience was laughing.

The humour was honest and self-aware and at no point seemed forced. It brought a levity to the characters which not only made them more relatable, but easy to root for. Despite this being his first foray into the performing arts, Kokoska displays a very grounded sense of who his characters are, even when they weren’t based off his personal life.

The “mirror test” that the play’s title refers to is a real psychological test developed by Gordon Gallup Jr in 1970. The test involved placing an animal in front of a mirror and observing its reaction to its own reflection. This test was designed to gauge the animal’s level of self-awareness. When the subject looks into the mirror, is it aware that it is looking at itself and, furthermore, will it understand what it sees?

Kokoska explains this test to the audience in the opening of the play by acting as a chimp taking part in the test, all while being narrated by an offstage voice which bared similarities to that of David Attenborough. The whole segment was really quite funny and did well to set up the theme for the rest of the play.

The play was hosted by the Cultch, a theatre in Vancouver. It is a small and very intimate venue which both helped and hindered the performance.

A one-man play is about as intimate as it gets with an actor, and it’s multiplied when they are roughly only 10 feet away from you performing for what looked like about 30 to 40 people. During the quiet moments, you could hear people shift in their seats with deafening clarity.

This heightened awareness to every word and inflection in Kokoska’s voice made many important and personal lines of dialogue much more poignant, but the wind was taken out of their sails quite easily when, for example, someone’s phone goes off in the front row and all of your focus is taken off Kokoska and placed on a muffled James Bond ringtone.

Despite a few minor hiccups, the show went quite well and many people left the theatre impressed and eager to talk about the play in the Cultch’s bar area.

“I’d like to keep acting, but I don’t know how that will look,” says Kokoska, who just became a registered clinical counsellor. “I would like to find a balance between acting and a therapy job.”

Based on his impressive performance and obvious understanding of the human psyche, either pursuit would be a well-served by Kokoska’s ambition.