Okay all you lovers of challenging live theatre, this is your show. Unpack your brain after its summer vacation at the beach; it’s time to reinvigorate those dormant brain cells at Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s production of Circle Mirror Transformation by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright – and MacArthur Fellow – Annie Baker. This script was the 2008 Obie award winner for Best New American Play and is directed by multi-talented Mike Turczynski. It is the ideal conveyance to transport you back to stimulating stagecraft.
Reflecting on her motivation to write this script, Baker stated she "wanted the audience to learn about the characters through formal theater exercises. I knew I wanted there to be excruciating silences. I knew I wanted a doomed class romance that left one character embarrassed and the other heartbroken. I knew I wanted the characters to deliver monologues as each other....Eventually I realized that the fun of the play is the fact that it's confined to this dull, windowless little space." Well, believe me this play delivers her vision in spades.
The action – or some might say “inaction” – takes place in the presumably small town of fictional Shirley, Vermont where the local community center is offering an “adult creative drama” workshop which is conducted by the ethereal and sort of “hippie dippy,” Marty who takes the class through a series of various, sometimes seemingly ridiculous, dramatic exercises. The class draws a recently divorced carpenter, Schultz, former actress, Theresa, high school junior, Lauren, and Marty’s husband, James. Each character brings a boatload of deeply buried baggage to the voyage and they slowly, and somewhat incompletely, disencumber themselves of their pasts, leaving the audience to imagine much of their back stories.
This cast, in itself, is a master class in acting. Bez Lancial-McMullen is the quintessential Marty, Lance Maynard as James totally captures her more rooted-in-reality, if imperfect, husband, Eric Teeter as the painfully vulnerable Schultz and Adrienne Evans as the angst-ridden Theresa are superb and the very talented Celeaciya Olvera pulls off the perfect eye-rolling teenager.
This show’s minimal set is dominated by upstage placement of three huge 4’ x 8’ panels of mirrors that aren’t really incorporated into the action. But notice the title of this play is Circle Mirror Transformation. And while that actually refers to the dramatic exercises, I read an intriguing perspective on rectangle vs. round mirrors. Rectangles, it said, provide a larger reflection; round provide an intimate reflection. Which image are we really seeing here?
This show is not for everyone but it is definitely worth the mental exercise and I have every confidence you’re up to the challenge.
Circle Mirror Transformation continues at Playcrafters Barn Theatre, 4950 – 35th Avenue in Moline, Thursday and Saturday, August 24 and 26 at 7:30 p.m. (please note this is a departure from the usual scheduling) and Sunday, August 27 at 3:00 p.m.
I’m Chris Hicks…break a leg.