3480
(1 vote, average 5.00 out of 5)
Written by Michael Muckian
Aug 12, 2011
Jaime Jastrab and Beth Mohollen in “Circle Mirror Transformation.” - Photo: Courtesy
The “play within a play” has been a popular conceit for playwrights dating all the way back to Shakespeare and before. But fewer authors have tackled the “preparing for a play within a play” scenario, an approach that requires a little more forethought in its development.
With its latest production, Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theatre enters this realm. Annie Baker’s “Circle Mirror Transformation” uses the scenario of a community-theater-in-the-making to walk through the psyche of its five characters.
Simplicity and strong character development make “Circle Mirror Transformation” an especially attractive vehicle to launch Boulevard Theatre’s 2011-12 season, says artistic director Mark Bucher.
“I was drawn to the play’s extreme precision and deceptively simple premise,” says Bucher, who directs the production with Hugh Blewett. “Every ‘huh,’ ‘OK’ and ‘um’ is well-earned and extremely well chosen. Baker reminds me of Harold Pinter in this sense.”
The comedy, which won a 2010 Obie Award for best new American play, follows five amateur performers through an acting class. As the seemingly disparate quintet undergoes various exercises, the self-discovery process reveals more about them than they may have been prepared to share. Those discoveries form the basis of the narrative, creating what The New York Times has called “an absorbing, unblinking and sharply funny play.”
Born in Boston but reared in Amhearst, Mass., Baker, 30, is considered one of the country’s up-and-coming playwrights. “Body Awareness,” her 2008 work, was nominated for both Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards. Her most recent work, “The Aliens,” was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
“Judging just from this play, I would describe Baker as a brilliant miniaturist,” Bucher says. “The script is like a Faberge egg, seemingly small but yielding expansive rewards for the patient and more discerning patron.”
Bucher says Boulevard’s intimate 800-square-feet theater is an ideal venue to recreate the comedy’s classroom intimacy.
“Baker utilizes repetition of similar exercises by the various class members to build a concurrence of theme,” Bucher says. “The action supports the idea of how art and theater can transform one in many countless, small ways that can have a lasting and dramatic impact on individuals willing to embrace and accept change.”
The intimacy of the Boulevard’s performing space, once home to an adult bookstore, enhances what Bucher describes as a “Petri dish-like atmosphere” that illuminates and magnifies smaller characters and their contribution to the whole. By bringing the audience and actors closer together, the nuances of the performances will be more keenly felt, he says.
The play’s comedic aspects are more like those of Anton Chekov than Neil Simon, according to Bucher. They promote acceptance and, with any luck, help connect the audience and playwright in meaningful ways, he says.
“I believe part of what Baker achieves with the play and through the title is the suggestion of the power of art and grandeur of the examined life, no matter how painful the process may initially seem,” Bucher says.
