I’m writing from you in the hours before The Mirror Game plays its timeslot at the North Hollywood Cinefest. It’s kind of funny how, after not playing at a single local festival all year, the film now finds itself in two Los Angeles festivals in as many week. This is the second; last Friday’s screening (as a part of the Lady Filmmakers Festival in Beverly Hills) was the first, making that showing the “Los Angeles Premiere.”

This festival was a lot different than the others we’ve been to around the country this year, mostly because we could invite a bigger contingent of our friends and family, this being our home base. Most of the small cast and crew were there, and the movie looked and sounded better than it ever had, despite being untouched, impossibly improved by the audience who’d gathered to watch it.

Photo by my dad. From left to right, Director of Photography Alex Gallitano, director William J. Stribling, Teya Patt (Rose), me, Michael Tennant (Abe)

The venue was the lovely Fine Arts Theatre on Wilshire and La Cienega. When we learned that this would be where the film was screening, the synchronicity of that fact was touching — I’d only been to the theater once before, and while it was an emotionally mixed night for me (more on that shortly), the occasion was extremely joyful: the premiere of This Day Forward, a film that had been made out of (and by members of) my beloved church, All Saints’ Beverly Hills. A writing group out of that same church had been the breeding ground (no pun intended) for my play (A Mere Conception) which would go on to be adapted into The Mirror Game. That was nearly five years ago, on November 4, 2017. The same year I started writing A Mere Conception.

There are a few scenes in the play and the movie that I distinctly remember writing — where I was when the idea formed or the words came to me. And, coincidence of coincidences, there is a scene in both works that originally took shape immediately after my first time — my only previous time — at the Fine Arts theater.

I will set the scene for you, even though it’s acutely embarrassing.

I’d parked over half a mile away and had made plans to meet a couple of friends for dinner after the screening. I came alone, and though I knew nearly everyone in the theater, I sat by myself. Or at least, I felt like I was by myself. Despite the night’s celebratory tone, I was very much in my own feelings about a romantic situation that had always felt out of my control, and was now proven to be out of my reach. Not for the first time (and, I’m afraid, not even for the last), I’d developed feelings for someone who I’d just learned — immediately before the screening — was not, in fact, single. Many (most?) of us have probably been there. Sometimes it’s an “aw, shucks” situation; for people with a different set of morals — morals that I am sometimes envious of — it might kick up a spirit of healthy competition. This time though, for me, it was heartbreak, forceful in a way that surprised me, as I’d thought I was being more careful with my heart at this late date.

So there, I sat in the darkened theater, alone among friends, trying to weep as quietly as possible. Angry at myself for being such a hopeful fool. Wondering when, if ever, it would be my turn to be appreciated and wanted in equal measure. Luckily, This Day Forward was — is — moving, both uplifting and sad, so when the lights went up, my red-rimmed eyes had an alibi.

I also had a good reason to hurry away after the movie ended — rushing off to dinner, great show, congratulations, see you Sunday! I speedwalked the many blocks to my car, and in retrospect, it’s a good thing I hadn’t found a closer spot. There’s something about walking that unshackles my writer’s brain. I can recall, for example, composing whole papers in college while pacing along the Midway Plaisance. But imagined conversations are my favorite medium, and this particular walk saw my dialogue engines spinning.

What spun up was a smart, hopeful woman’s earnest, embarrassed emotional truth. Gee, what could have brought that on?

I couldn’t stop and commit my train of thought to paper, but I didn’t want to lose it, so I made a recording of myself having the conversation out loud. That voice memo — taped as I drove across Beverly Hills and back into Los Angeles proper — eventually made it into the play, and later the movie, relatively unchanged.

That’s what I was thinking about last Friday as The Mirror Game was projected onto the screen of the Fine Arts Theatre. Same screen, different movie. I was sitting in practically the same seat. I was not crying this time, and I didn’t feel alone among friends, except in the knowledge of the way this moment rhymed with that other.

People have been congratulating me all year about The Mirror Game, reminding me what an accomplishment it is to make a movie. Finally, the scope of it struck me with full, beautiful force. I’d had no idea, the last time I’d sat in that theater, that I was on the precipice of such a major creative journey.

I didn’t know if the play would ever be finished, let alone performed. A movie was not in my fantasies. I’d been dreaming about something entirely different, and felt crushed in the face of its abject impossibility.

What occurred to me on Friday was how, the bigger in scope an endeavor is, the more tiny steps are required to bring it to fruition. As they’re taken, each step can feel like just one minor accomplishment, or one stroke of good fortune.

My actor friend Mark agreeing to read the play in public with me. Mark and his friend Beth wanting to do the show with their theater company. More excellent actors agreeing to direct. Rehearsals, hotels cooperating, audiences laughing. Will wanting to make a movie during lockdown. Teya putting herself on tape. Brett and Russ giving us their trust and financial backing. Securing the Vegas hotel room. The shoot going well. No one getting Covid. The post-houses doing us a solid because they liked the film. Getting into a film festival. Getting into a lot of film festivals. Sitting here, in this plush red movie theater seat, loved ones on either side of me.1

For a clear, oxygenated moment, I felt it: look what is possible, step by step.

In hopes of corroborating my memory, I searched my Voice Memos app and found the attached audio. It might not sound sensical to anyone who hasn’t seen the play or movie. Hell, it might only make sense to me. If you decide to listen to it in its uncut glory, you’ll hear me doing both parts, Abe and Rose (as they’d eventually be named). I’m not reading a script. I’m writing a script with my voice. In the background, you can hear the engine of my beat up old Aveo (RIP) because I am actively driving through at least some of the recording (LA, am I right?).

Sure enough, the date of the recording is November 4, 2017. Listening back, I was surprised at myself. I expected to sound more heartbroken. But I guess the act of creating something new flushed that away somehow. But the voice is clear. For someone who had no ideas where she was headed, she sure sounds confident about the step she’s taking.

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This is not even close to an exhaustive list.

Marissa Flaxbart's Metaforia

Same Theater, Different Movie