What exactly do actors do when they rehearse for a play?
That provocative question is explored in the new production at the Actors Theatre Playhouse, “Circle Mirror Transformation.”
As it follows an unlikely group of people who sign up for a theater class at a community center in the fictional town of Shirley, Vt., and watches them discover the art of theater as they play imaginative (and sometimes awkward) theater games, “Circle Mirror Transformation” provides a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes when putting on a play.
This fully staged production of “Circle Mirror Transformation” stars Jennifer Moyse, Maia Gilmour, Pat Langille, Richard A. Epstein, and Peter Eisenstadter. Director is Josh Moyse.
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays through Aug. 31 at ATP in West Chesterfield, N.H.
The author of “Circle Mirror Transformation,” American playwright Annie Baker, graduated from the department of dramatic writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and earned her MFA from Brooklyn College. She teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook University in Southampton, N.Y.
The author of five acclaimed plays, Baker was one of seven playwrights selected to participate in the 2008 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab. Baker's “Circle Mirror Transformation” premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in October 2009, received Obie Awards for Best New American Play of 2009, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.
“Circle Mirror Transformation” concerns five strangers who take a six-week adult creative drama class. Through a series of acting exercises, they learn not only how to put on a show, but also something about trust, compassion, responsibility, and personal growth in the community in which they live – and more importantly, in their own lives.
Like an onion being peeled, these innocent games and improvisations begin to reveal the hidden layers beneath and below.
Each of the five people in the class - Marty (Langille), the teacher; Schultz (Epstein), a recently divorced carpenter; Lauren (Gilmour) a high school junior; Theresa (Moyse), a former actress; and James (Eisenstadter), Marty's husband - find their lives profoundly changed because of these funny, imaginative, and sometimes awkward “games.”
“We get to meet these five people through an acting class they are taking, in a room similar to something we might see at the Gibson-Aiken Center here in town,” says Josh Moyse. “Being in an acting class means you have to put yourself in a heightened state of self-awareness that acknowledges you need to open yourself up in a public way, which can be nerve-wracking and awkward, but usually provides great humor and, ultimately, fun.”
Moyse says he believes Baker's play captures that essence wonderfully.
“You get to actually 're-meet' people and characters you thought you might have known your whole life. This time, from the inside,” he says. “Living in Vermont as I do, I recognize some of these characters – well, at least their real-life counterparts. And since the play is being performed locally, I'd wager the audience will also recognize some of the characters on stage from their hometowns.”
“Circle Mirror Transformation” also explores what it's like to live in rural Vermont. It is the second play in Baker's Vermont trilogy, all which take place in the invented town of Shirley.
Even though each play has a distinct plot and characters, Baker's other two dramas, “The Body Awareness” and “The Aliens,” also demonstrate, if not celebrate, the idiosyncrasies of life in a small, artsy Vermont town.
Baker knows her source material inside and out. She may not be a Vermont native, but she has close ties with this side of New England. Her mother lives in Keene, N.H., and she herself grew up in Amherst, Mass.
Moyse also knows first-hand what he is talking about. Not only he did he grow up in Vermont, he also has extensive experience as a professional actor in California and in New York City.
“The play gives us a peek at what actors really study when they put on a play,” he says. “We may think these guys are a bunch of goofballs. We may ask ourselves, Do actors really do this? Invariably, they do. Every actor at one time or other has played these theatrical games.”
Moyse says he believes he has assembled a “crackerjack cast. We went through a long audition process, but the result paid off.”
Moyse finds “Circle” to be “an exquisitely gentle play” that calls on the actors to vanish into their roles in a manner that is seldom asked of performers.
“Often, actors on stage want to 'perform,' to stalk the stage, be a kind of rock star. This can be great because many plays require that kind of performance from an actor. However, not in this kind of play. Here actors need to vanish inside their roles.
“For me, helping the actors hone their characters' physical life is a real joy, and is absolutely necessary because a large part of the action takes place in silence or between the stops and starts of conversation. The actors' presence must be felt, but not the director's. And that challenge of directing a show where it looks like I've done no work at all is a lot of work. Annie Baker has done a marvelous job in creating the setting and the set-up for this experience. Hopefully we will have done our job and brought the audience along for the ride,” Moyse says.
Moyse claims that what touches him about this play is that it shows how our lives have the potential to be changed by the “small things.”
“The small things can, at first glance, be quite funny, but after a while they can lose this quality, and one morning you wake up to the possibility that your life has profoundly changed, and no one's laughing anymore. I don't want to give the plot away, but the play is funny, and exceedingly perceptive to what life is really like. Either you keep laughing until it hurts, or you hurt because you laugh so much,” he says.