Circle Mirror Transformation

Circle Mirror Transformation is a play by Annie Baker, centered on drama classes at a community centre in Vermont. The play opened Off-Broadway in 2009 and received the Obie Award for Best New American Play.

Productions

Circle Mirror Transformation premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on October 13, 2009^[1] and closed on January 31, 2010.^[2] Directed by Sam Gold, the cast featured Reed Birney, Tracee Chimo, Peter Friedman, Deirdre O'Connell and Heidi Schreck.^[2]

The play received Obie Awards for Best New American Play (sharing it with Baker's The Aliens)^[3])Performance, Ensemble and Directing (Sam Gold).^[4]

The play was nominated for the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Play and Outstanding Director of a Play, and the cast was awarded a special Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Ensemble Performances.^[5]

It received its European premiere in a Royal Court Theatre production at the Rose Lipman Building in Haggerston, London from 5 July to 3 August 2013, directed by James Macdonald and with a cast consisting of Toby Jones, Imelda Staunton, Shannon Tarbet, Danny Webb and Fenella Woolgar.^[6]

Critical response

The New York Times reviewer called the play "absorbing, unblinking and sharply funny" and wrote: "The artificiality of the acting games just emphasizes the naturalness of the characters’ real lives and feelings. Group members pose as trees, beds and baseball gloves. They perform emotional scenes using only the words goulash and ak-mak. They pretend to be one another, telling their life stories. They write deep, dark secrets (anonymously) on scraps of paper and listen, sitting in a circle on the floor, as the confessions are read aloud."^[7]

The Guardian reviewer of the London production wrote: "...as with 'The Aliens'... I found myself admiring Baker's sensitivity while hungering for a bit more theatrical attack... All this emerges with a good deal of subtlety through the students' enactment of each other's situations. But, while Baker tells us a lot about her characters, we learn little about Vermont... Baker's play does, however, yield some excellent performances... But although the piece is quietly perceptive, I still feel it's an inward-looking play about inward-looking people."^[8]

References