Circle Mirror Transformation

We’ve all been there, us theatre nuts: playing rehearsal games, pretending to be someone’s mother/father/cat/pot-plant, improvising situations in turn silly and deeply personal. Well, here’s a play that will remind you of those past ‘warm ups’ and ‘impros’. Annie Baker’s 90 minute 5-hander won Best New American Play at the 2010 Obie Awards for Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions. This Ensemble staging will be rewarding for all who have endured and/or enjoyed such ‘creative drama’ classes.

On Justin Nardella’s excellently realistic set – featuring the wooden floor, brick walls, ballet barre, full-length mirrors and swing doors of a bookable hall in up-north Vermont — four locals sign up for Marty’s course. James (Alan Dukes) is her quietly hostile husband; Theresa (Jenni Baird) says she’s done a bit of acting in New York; Schultz (Paul Gleeson) is a local carpenter, divorced and lonely; Lauren (Chloe Bayliss), a brittle 16 year old constantly hiding behind her hoodie, wants tips on how to play Maria in her school’s coming production of West Side Story.

Over six weeks Marty (Eliza Logan) puts them through her repertoire of exercises, games and increasingly revealing psychodramas during which secrets are revealed, frustrations spill out, lusts are stoked. With not so much a plot as a series of linked character developments, this mysteriously titled play is nevertheless witty, wise and enjoyable, with excellent acting opportunities for its hard-working cast under the assured direction Shannon Murphy, ex Resident Director of Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company.

Particularly naturalistic (always a tough call at the up-close Ensemble) is Gleeson as the puzzled, out-of-his-depth Schultz; and Baird as the sexy, friendly Theresa, genuinely surprised at the waves she is making.

Frank Hatherley

Images: (top) Jenni Baird, Chloe Bayliss, Paul  Gleeson, Alan Dukes and Eliza Logan and (lower) Clockwise from left Jenni Baird,  Alan Dukes, Eliza Logan, Paul Gleeson and Chloe Bayliss. Photographer: Sevi Dilanchian