Circle Mirror Transformation Review

I would like to say something as a side note before I talk about the play. I almost always wear a watch, and when I don't have it on, I usually feel a little uncomfortable or like something is missing. When I left my house Saturday night to go see Circle Mirror Transformation, I realized I left my watch at home. I thought not having my watch during the play would be a test. I figured that if I was really enjoying the show, I wouldn't feel the need at any point to look at my watch. I can safely say that not once did I feel the urge to know the time while watching Circle Mirror Transformation. Even if I had my watch on, the last thing I would want to do is look at it because then I would remember that the show is only two hours long and it would be over soon. Now onto the play itself...

I walked into the theater with pretty high expectations - I had read a few very good reviews and I knew that Montana liked the show as well.

The play is about four people attending an acting class in the small town of Shirley, Vermont. The students are of all different ages and have completely different backgrounds. The play shows what happens in the six weeks of the acting class. Through acting exercises during the classes and with what happens before and after the classes, we are able to see different relationships form among the people. Their pasts are also slowly revealed throughout the play. Some of these exercises include every person lying down and trying to count to ten without speaking at the same time (how the play begins), or having one person present a monologue as someone else in the class. Who would think a play about people attending an acting class would be interesting? It probably sounds boring. There are a few reasons why this show was so intriguing to me.

One reason relates to what i said in my manifesto - feeling different emotions while watching the show. This show was both a comedy and a drama, with the audience's riotous laughter one minute and complete silence the next. This applies to one of Greg Allen's rules, saying, "A piece that is primarily comedy should have deadly serious moments, and a tragedy should have elements of high comedy" (Rule #14). Circle Mirror Transformation really worked with these elements and played around with them, allowing us to "contradict [our] expectations," as Allen says.

What the actors were saying seemed very true to their characters, and their movements were very natural as well. I don't remember there being a point when I felt what they were doing was forced or didn't seem like it should have been said. I didn't feel like I was watching people acting; I felt I was really seeing people taking an acting class. The main reason why this show felt so realistic was because it had many periods of silence. There were a lot of awkward moments and significant amounts of time when the entire room was silent for minutes. This happened many times throughout the show, whether it was because the students were doing an exercise in the class that didn't involve a lot of talking, or if it was because one guy didn't know how to approach a girl, creating awkward, lasting silences for periods of time. These are the moments when the writer can really lose the audience. This is where the brilliance of the play shines through - the show never lost me at these moments. I was completely entertained even when there was complete silence. We talked in class about moments in Tape when the play lost us. There wasn't a moment in Circle Mirror Transformation that lost me.

Another thing that this show does applies to something that Edward Sobel said,"Good theatre raises more important questions than it answers, but satisfies nonetheless." Leaving the theater, I had so many questions and I didn't even need them to be answered in the play. I loved that I was pondering why something happened and why someone said a certain line. All of these questions led me to discuss and think about the show afterward, and the more I think and talk about it, the more I like it. An example is the relationship between two people, James and Marty, in the play. Something happened between the two and I left the theater not really knowing what it was, and I'm okay with that. Normally I wouldn't be, I usually like knowing exactly what is going on, but in this case it's so interesting not knowing all of the details. They're not revealed to us for a reason. We are flies on the wall and it works so well in this show.

The set was a very believable dance or workout room. I know that isn't very specific, and it doesn't seem like it would be hard to mess up, but it was still really realistic. It had a full wall mirror and a huge exercise ball which was appropriate. Every detail added to the simple set complemented the whole play.

I have to say the acting was phenomenal. There wasn't a weak actor in the show, and they were all so convincing. I mentioned this earlier, when I said I felt everything they did was very natural. Every character had a distinct personality and the actors portrayed them perfectly. I honestly can't imagine other actors playing these roles because I feel like the characters are real people, as crazy as that sounds. I didn't feel like I was watching a play, I was watching real life.

The show really brought the audience in. It created an intimate setting which I think is hard to do. This might be because it was in a very small theater with a small cast, but I felt I was completely transported to where the play was taking place. The only moments I hated during the night were when a woman's phone kept vibrating and when the man behind me kept ruffling his jacket. These were the moments when I was taken out of the experience and realized I was actually sitting in a theater and watching a play. At the end of the play, when the lights started fading on the actors, I realized the show was coming to an end and I didn't want it to.

If I can sit through the entire play completely focused on what is happening on the stage, while Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis are sitting two rows behind me, I think the show proves to be an engaging and powerful work of art.