‘Circle’ ensemble finds its center
Characters and play develop slowly
Annie Baker always assumed that “Circle Mirror Transformation” would be the play she’d written that would have the hardest time finding an audience. “It’s an elliptical fragment play with a lot of offstage action and silence,” Baker said in a 2011 interview. “While I find that exciting, I wasn’t sure anyone else would.”
Guess again, as proven by the second Milwaukee production of this beautiful play. Six years after Boulevard Theatre’s Mark Bucher gave Wisconsin its first, overdue look at Baker through this gem, All In Productions is reminding us just how good it is, in a production being directed by Mitch Weindorf, an actor who has had the benefit of working with Bucher in the past.
Like Baker’s “The Aliens” and “Body Awareness,” “Circle Mirror” takes place in the fictionalized town of Shirley, Vt., where a windowless studio space plays host to a six-week adult acting class, composed of an instructor and four students. Unfolding over 100 intermission-free minutes, each of the six weeks is divided into several short scenes.
Marty (Jennifer Grundy), the middle-aged instructor, is getting her first crack at teaching adults rather than kids; she’s nervous and, in Grundy’s hands, a bit rigid — despite all Marty’s efforts to project a soothing calm. As we’ll see, some of that inflexibility reflects her effort to keep it together, even though her world is falling apart.
James (Joe Krapf), her slightly older husband, is her match: a onetime Californian intent on presenting as a laidback, open and sensitive man, he’s actually a tad narcissistic, as well as unhappy and angry that the world and his wife aren’t as high on him as he is on himself.
Theresa (Abigail Stein) is a New York transplant with boundary issues; she isn’t kidding when she says she has no secrets and over shares. Stein lets us see why: Despite Theresa’s upbeat demeanor and can-do approach, she’s utterly lost and hungry for attention.
Ditto the sad, puppy-like Schultz (written as 48 and played by a much-too-young Matthew Scales), who is still recovering from a recent divorce.
The class is rounded out by 16-year-old Lauren (a heartbreaking Sarah Caveney), a lucid reflector illuminating what’s going on with the foursome around her — even as her own haughty façade gradually gives way, revealing a lonely but hopeful girl, longing for connection.
Through their awkward pauses and initially fractured acting exercises, this quintet does tentatively connect, forming a circle that transforms each of them, despite all the ways they remain isolated.
For the most part, Weindorf’s ensemble honors Baker’s silences and subtleties, allowing these characters and this play to develop slowly and with the sort of hiccups that are true to our awkward dance, as we struggle with all it means to be alone, together.
“Circle Mirror Transformation” runs through April 15 at Alchemist Theatre, 2569 S. Kinnickinnic. For tickets, visit allin-mke.com/. Read more about this production at TapMilwaukee.com.