CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION
CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION, Ensemble Theatre, 2 August-2 September 2012. Photos by Sevi Dilanchian, l-r Jenni Baird, Alan Dukes, Chloe Bayiss, Eliza Logan and Paul Gleeson; right: Eliza Logan.
Tracked down in New York by Dan Wyllie, secured for Sydney by Shannon Murphy, taken up and produced by the Ensemble, Circle Mirror Transformation, by 31-year-old Annie Baker, shared the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play with another of her works, The Aliens. Both are part of a loose quartet known as The Vermont Plays - because of their setting in the fictional small town of Shirley, in that state. Circle Mirror Transformation was included in the 10 best plays of 2010 by the New York Times, Time Out NYC and The New Yorker and from this production - beautifully directed by Shannon Murphy and with a uniformly wonderful cast of five - it's easy to see why.
Deceptively slight and disarmingly charming, the play uses a community drama class, run by the well meaning and earnestly hand-woven Marty (Eliza Logan) to explore some of the deeper hopes, dreams and hurts of small town life. In Marty's group for the course are her husband and good bloke James (Alan Dukes), a recent and lonely divorcee Schultz (Paul Gleeson), the newly-arrived in town from New York ex-actress Theresa (Jenni Baird) and Lauren (Chloe Bayliss), a teenager who dreams of being an actress, or maybe a vet.
They meet in a community centre hall - a grimly and comically authentic setting by Justin Nardella and lighting designer Teegan Lee - for Marty's solemnly organised exercises. For these naifs the rituals imposed by her Acting 101 are either baffling or embarrassing. In week three an exasperated Lauren finally asks, "Are we going to be doing any real acting?" The pleasure and interest for the audience, of course, is that to this point there has been a lot of superb acting and much to enjoy as each character is revealed.
These are a disparate group of people determined to squeeze the very last drop of possibility from life, no matter how unpromising it might look. What happens over the six weeks of klutzy impro, free association, games and other basics of circle, mirror, transformation is compressed into 100 minutes of sharply defined scenes and some wittily constructed story-telling. It's funny from time to time, but more often it's simply fascinating in the way of overheard snatches of ordinary lives. In other words, the apparently ordinary is rarely ordinary at all.
Annie Baker has a sharp and accurate ear for the way these people speak; she also has a sharp yet compassionate eye for them too. In this production she has the good fortune to have her play in the hands of one of our most promising directors. Shannon Murphy orchestrates each actor's passage through choppy scenes and subtle stories with delicious attention to detail and the tiny, discrete moments of humour and pathos. She is well served by the cast: the men are the solid foundation for three performances that really fly: Logan, Baird and Bayliss are simply terrific.
This play and its principals appear to signal a fresh direction for the Ensemble and it's a welcome one for Sydney theatre: to see talent such as Murphy and this cast on the north side of the harbour is really exciting. Enjoy this production and let's see what happens next.
