Review: ‘Circle Mirror Transformation’ asks audiences to focus on the no-frills present

What makes a play a play? The answer seems fairly obvious. Actors enter. Something happens. That “something” should be interesting, singular, important. You know — dramatic. But Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s 2009 play Circle Mirror Transformation quietly asks us to consider another possibility. 

Currently in a thoughtful new production from Authenticity Theatre Company at 7 Stages through June 20, Circle Mirror is set in a community center acting class in small-town Vermont and follows five adults over a six-week workshop. They play familiar acting games, talk, listen and sit in awkward silence. There is barely a wisp of a conventional plot. At times, the most dramatic thing happening on stage is someone putting away a folding chair.

Reviewing Circle Mirror Transformation therefore presents a peculiar challenge. Is it entertaining? Is it enjoyable? Would I recommend it? No, not really. And yes. 

Baker uses the acting class as a way of observing human behavior. The characters spend weeks pretending, improvising and revealing themselves through structured exercises meant to encourage, of all things, authenticity. The result is a slightly unsettling hall of mirrors with the audience slowly becoming part of that reflection, not outside it.

Director Kelley Jordan’s production keeps things grounded, clear and present. Designer Scott Keefer’s rehearsal room set is convincingly realized, complete with bulletin boards, cubbies and worn wooden floors. At the center is Marty, the motherly acting instructor, played with warmth and authority by Lainie Smith. A tentative romance develops between the sweet, vulnerable Schultz (Jackson Vance) and the more experienced and independent Theresa (Sarah Palm). Baker’s signature is to let it all unfold in fragments rather than scenes of emotional payoff or revelation. 

Believe it or not, the play is often very funny, and much of the humor comes from recognition: the awkwardness, the hesitation, the efforts to connect and the strangeness and incompleteness of ordinary speech. At one point, Carson Hebblethwaite — as the morose teenage Lauren — asks the teacher, “But when are we going to do some real acting?”

There’s warmth and gentleness in Baker’s approach but also a quiet bleakness that settles in over time. The show asks viewers to simply sit with ordinary existence. I couldn’t say I enjoyed the experience exactly, but I don’t imagine “enjoyment” is what Baker is after. The sharp, exposed focus on the present moment is both generous and unsettling. 

The play ultimately leaves both life and performance as unresolved questions. The usual demands of watching theater are doubled here: It asks you to watch, which is a lot when you come to think of it. 

The play daringly strips away many of the tools theater uses to heighten experience, such as action, catharsis and meaningful dialogue. Baker’s achievement is to show that ordinary life may not require dramatic enhancement at all in order to matter.

Where and When

Circle Mirror Transformation, an Authenticity Theatre production, is at 7 Stages through June 20. Tickets start at $20.
1105 Euclid Ave. NE.

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Andrew Alexander is an Atlanta-based writer.