Review: CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION at Phoenix Theatre

Circle Mirror Transformation

Written by Annie Baker

Directed by Ciera Eis

Custom Made Theatre

Annie Baker said she wanted to explore her characters through artificial acting exercises in a dull, windowless little space involving excruciating silences. Through the vehicle of a 6-week Adult Creative Drama class the students become trees, inanimate objects, perform modern dance and vocalize using only the words goulash and ak-mak. Director Ciera Eis tries to add some life to this piece through the actors' movements, but the main problem are those excruciating silences and awkward moments of inaction that kill any momentum and sap the viewers' attention.

Pity, cause the acting is nice with lovely performances by Lauren Dunagan as Theresa, an actress fresh off a disturbing breakup and Emily Keyishian as Marty, the serious acting teacher who will learn more than she cares to over the course of the play. Too many scene blackouts stretch the thin material past its sell by date. The acting exercises are fun in the short term but are repeated and repeated.

If all this is meant to focus on the individual storylines, the purpose was diluted. There are some clever moments; the five deliver monologues as each other, revealing private information they themselves don't divulge. Recreating childhood visual memories was interesting to move through trauma, and revealing secrets written on scraps of paper is straight out of the New Age self-transformation manuals.

Theresa has a mini romance with recently divorced furniture maker Shultz (Alfred Muller), a sad sack who blossoms over the six weeks. James (David Boyll) is Marty's husband whose secret is that he thinks he's in love with Theresa. Lauren (Brenda Cisneros) is a 16-year-old quiet high schooler who just wants to play Maria in West Side story.

Circle Mirror Transformation would've had more weight and better affect edited down to distill both the comic insaneness of the actions and the gravity of the drama. The cast tries its best but is overcome by the excess.

Circle Mirror Transformation continues through April 16th, 2022. Learn more & buy tickets at http://www.custommade.org or (415) 798-CMTC (2682).

Photo Credit: Jay Yamada

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