Theresa (Arwen Anderson) and Marty (Julia Brothers) talk during a break from their adult Creative Drama class in the Bay Area Premiere of Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation, now playing at Marin Theatre Company, in co-production with Encore Theatre Company, through August 26.
Marin Theatre Company in a co-production with Encore Theatre Company of San Francisco, has opened its 2012-13 Season with a regional premiere of Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, a hot, young, New York-based playwright. Earlier this year, the Aurora Theatre Company gave Annie Baker’s Body Awareness a strong production, followed by the San Francisco Playhouse’s superb production of her second play, The Aliens, which were both set in the fictional town of Shirley, Vermont. Circle Mirror Transformation, also set in Shirley, Vermont, has become her most popular play.
Since Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation is an actor’s play, it wouldn’t be surprising if any person who has taken an acting class has played at least one of the games presented in this play. However, Circle Mirror Transformation is not just a play about acting. It is also a play about life. Acting could be viewed as mirroring the transformation of life. According to Annie Baker, life is about circles, mirrors, and transformations. Life is often described as a circle, observing only six weeks of an acting class, Baker grapples with many common issues in life.
In 33 brief scenes, spread over six weeks, Circle Mirror Transformation follows the discovery of four students with the guidance of Marty, their teacher (Julia Brothers). The class includes recently divorced carpenter Schultz (Robert Parsons), precocious aspiring actress Lauren (Marissa Keltie), teasing former actress Theresa (Arwen Anderson) and Marty’s husband James (L. Peter Callender).
The play opens on the group in the first day of class playing a concentration game where the goal is to count to ten, one by one, without signaling who is going to say what number and when. The group is unable to do it. The play is essentially a compilation of acting games with two real scenes in between.
Staged by New York Director Kip Fagan in his first Marin production, the show displays the talents of a marvelously strong cast. Andrew Boyce’s set is a community center rec room. The class taking place in the center is called “Adult Creative Drama–six weeks of once a week classes conveyed in two hours with no intermission, but with lots of short scenes and blackouts. These pauses are one of the defining trademarks of Annie Baker’s work. Silence allows the characters to think before they act; everything becomes much more deliberate. It also gives the audience time and space to take in the story and participate in the moment the characters are living through.
The “transformation” in the title refers to the barely perceptible ways people change each other for good and sometimes forever. What’s most amazing over the course of the play is the occasional “re-enactments” in which one student plays another. From the depth and detail of the portrayals, you realize just how much quality time they’ve spent together. Annie Baker has created a theatrical compliment to real life.
Circle Mirror Transformation runs August 2-August 26, 2012 at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA. Performances are at 8 p.m. Tuesday & Thursday-Saturday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; and 7 p.m. Sunday. Matinees are at 2 p.m. every Sunday. There are also performances Saturday, August 11 and 25 at 2 p.m. and a 1 p.m. performance, Thursday, August 16.
For tickets, call 415-388-5208 or go online at www.marintheatre.org.
Coming up next at Marin Theatre Company will be Top Dog/Under Dog by Susan-Lori Parks and directed by Timothy Douglas, September 27-October 21, 2012.
