‘Circle Mirror Transformation’ Keeps Audiences Guessing

Chloe Attalla, Reese Madigan, Tami Workentin (above), Mark Ulrich (above), Elyse Edelman. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

Even veteran theatergoers may be thrown into a loop of confusion by the first half of Circle Mirror Transformation, the season-closing show at Next Act Theatre. Are we supposed to be lightly amused or just curiously fascinated? Is this just a slow start to an offbeat two-hour drama?

But those who have played theater games before — in acting classes, community therapy sessions or improv routines — will tend to chuckle early in the event. And they will lean forward in quiet anticipation of how the processes at play will blow into directly comic or offbeat laughs or contained moments of domestic anger.

What starts out as five people lying on the floor and listening to each other count to 10, or breathing exercises to share sensory perceptions, or switching genders to weave stories to convince the others of their acting ability – these are the games four volunteers have signed up to play in fictional Shirley, Vermont, under a know-it-all leader pretending to be just one of the gang (actress Tami Workentin).

Don’t anticipate. Don’t get anxious. Don’t overexplain. Work moment by moment through the lessons of life and behavior.

Artistic director Cody Estle had to assemble an astute team of experienced actors to pretend to be untalented learners, holding their natural emotional power in check for the opening gambit of keeping the audience in the dark about what to expect in the slow unfolding of the story.

Such expertise is needed to humanize the conflicts, to demonstrate the patience and respect for silence that the games involve. Joke all you want about theater games – they do produce results, even while looking silly.

Playwright Annie Baker is sternly exploring the trick of limited discovery and then more revealing human contact as the participants get to know each other, and we get to know their relationships. Be warned. The relationships are crafty, even miniature, the revelations sudden, the humor indirect.

This is quite a different theater piece than most audiences are accustomed to as we watch ourselves as well as the cast (thanks to the huge mirror at the back of designer Jeffrey D. Kmiec‘s dance-studio setting). The rewards are more in the amusement and quiet understanding than in any vicious human combat.

Workentin never shows her mastery of comic delivery, but she quietly has it in a matter-of-fact “what do you think” performance, which is its own class in the self-indulgent pretext of caring. Chloe Attalla has nice moments as the would-be actress clamoring to learn more about real theater than these silly games are telling her.

Elyse Edelman is the always optimistic romantic troublemaker who keeps falling in and out of love, while her personality sneaks up on our feelings. Reese Madigan and Mark Ulrich – talented underplayers – subtly show the masculine pretense of seeming to be in control while actually losing control.

Sound designer Josh Schmidt (there may be other talents involved to credit for this) provides the sort of soothing Muzak and therapeutic bells that lull us through the frequent blackouts and passing weeks of the studio class. Director Estle has the difficult task of making everything seem unforced while every gesture has been predetermined.

The play won the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play. Baker’s script is so deliberately tied to the game motif that her skill at creeping up on the domestic tragedies will go largely unnoticed. This is not a production of big emotional payoff, but it values the quiet moments when we learn about each other, supposedly through casual conversations. If patrons get caught up in its pace they will find rewards.

Circle Mirror Transformation runs through May 18 at the Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. For tickets and other information, visit https://nextact.org/

Circle Mirror Transformation Gallery

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.