"Circle Mirror Transformation," the first of a three−play series by Annie Baker, is an unusual play that manages to invoke in the audience the same feelings of uneasiness and nervous expectation experienced by its characters as they set out to immerse themselves in the uninhibited world of acting. It is clever and profound, funny and heart−wrenching and terrifically realistic.
Currently showing at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, "Circle Mirror Transformation" is part of the "Shirley, VT Plays" Festival, an event created to celebrate Baker's work. The play is set in the small fictional town of Shirley, Vt., and introduces its five main characters as they take part in six beginner adult drama lessons.
The show, which runs for close to two hours without an intermission, is a well−paced examination of five adults who are all going through difficult experiences ranging from divorce to a recent move to a new town. The audience gets to know the characters while they get to know one another through the class's theater games and breaks, as well as the emerging love affairs, conflicts and secrets that are revealed. The audience is introduced to the characters not by how they represent themselves, but by how they perceive their classmates as well as portray them — it is a drama class, after all.
Playwright Baker creates an enticing and original background in the fictional town of Shirley, where the plot unfolds. Shirley is a small town, a quirky and intricate setting complete with a brook and the Vermont Gourd Festival. It is much more than your typical small town; Baker's imagination creates a place where, up until 2008, public nudity was common at the Saturday Morning Farmer's Market.
All of these facts allow us to construct an image of Baker as a person and of what she is trying to achieve as she places five uniquely memorable characters in a windowless dance studio in Shirley. Nevertheless, the focus of "Circle Mirror Transformation" is the characters themselves, who, like the town, are incredibly complex.
As the play advances, the true nature of the characters is revealed, and our impression of each slowly shifts. Through this evolution, Baker successfully mirrors everyday experiences with first impressions and incorrect assumptions with which the audience is undoubtedly familiar.
The jolly and engaging drama teacher, Maddy, is middle−aged and happily married to James, who is taking the class himself. Schultz is a 48−year−old carpenter who is still coping with a recent divorce. Theresa is the young, pretty and outgoing newcomer to Shirley, hailing from New York City. And Lauren is a confused, mumbling and sulking 16−year−old with colorful socks who happens to be an aspiring actress.
As the play slowly advances, the characters prove to be multilayered and engaging. The comprehensive development of the characters quickly transforms the play into a fantastic myriad of poignancy, humor and love.
The theater fanatics in the audience will enjoy the play's use of familiar acting games such as Word−at−a−Time, Gibberish with a Past Incident, and of course, Circle, Mirror, Transformation as the catalyst for the characters' development.
Baker wrote the play in an attempt to perform an experiment in which characters were revealed through carefully scripted formal exercises and typical games of a beginner drama class, Charles Haugland, literary associate for the Huntington Theatre Company, wrote in Huntington's "Cell Phone Playbill." In fact, each night that the play is performed one of these games will be played unscripted by the playwright, a real−time revelation of their "characters" to the audience.
"Circle Mirror Transformation" is a unique play in which human nature is intensively explored. This portrait of five complex yet familiar characters by Annie Baker is not to be missed.
