Actors do a lot of preparation long before you see them on stage in theaters such as Columbia's Rep Stage. This isn't just a matter of memorizing their lines and also learning how to move across the stage without colliding with furniture and other actors. There's also a long period of learning about the acting process.
Annie Baker's "Circle Mirror Transformation" does such an effective job of placing five characters within an acting workshop that you'll feel as if you're watching the real thing in her 2009 Off-Broadway play.
This proves to be a mixed blessing. Although it's impressive that the playwright is able to thoroughly immerse you in this workshop environment, the thematic connections between the characters' role-playing exercises and their real lives are established in such an incremental manner that the play itself often seems to be moving in place. Numerous short scenes composed of near-identical exercises become too much of an effective thing.
To her credit, Baker's play does in its own leisurely way end up making some dramatically strong points about how actors drawing on their psychological and physical resources can wind up in a confusing place where boundaries blur between their personal and professional identities.
To its credit, the Rep Stage production skillfully directed by Suzanne Beal is so highly disciplined that you get a real sense of how much effort goes into theatrical training exercises. And it's wonderfully appropriate that the Rep Stage production makes a lively case for this play through five actors who prove to be well-prepped to play these actor characters.
The single-set "Circle Mirror Transformation" clearly benefits from being staged in Rep Stage's Studio Theatre, because this is a so-called black box theater with a compact staging area and, yes, black walls.
Baker's stage directions emphasize that the play is set within a dance studio that has no windows. So, there will not be any views of the presumably beautiful Vermont scenery outside. Instead, two of the dance studio walls are lined by mirrors that allow characters seated in a circle to see reflections of themselves and the other actors. In short, this is the insular acting world.
That confining environment is crucial in the staging of this play.
Similarly, when "Circle Mirror Transformation" had its Baltimore premiere at Fells Point Corner Theatre in 2012, that production made the most of its near-claustrophobic staging conditions. Where the Rep Stage production has an advantage is that its somewhat larger performance space facilitates all of the stretching exercises and also the general running around.
The six-week acting workshop in "Circle Mirror Transformation" is being conducted by Marty (Meg Kelly), a middle-aged woman who projects the confidence of somebody who is a veteran of such workshops. One of the participating actors, James (Tom Byrn), happens to be married to Marty. They tell hippie-era stories that connect the world of this play to theatrical experimentation associated with the 1960s and '70s.
Two of the other workshop participants, the somewhat younger Schultz (Yury Lomakin) and Theresa (Beth Hylton), are meeting for the first time here.
Just as they can't deny that they connect in their acting exercises, only a mild spoiler alert is warranted in observing that there might be genuine romantic sparks between them. Both arrive with a lot of emotional baggage from busted relationships, so expect melodrama on their personal playbill.
The remaining workshop participant, Lauren (Natalie Collins), is a high school student. She asks a question doubtless shared by many audience members: "Are we going to be doing any real acting?" The answer is that this workshop is devoted to the primal exercises that precede working on a specific play.
As Baker gradually dispenses biographical and emotional facts about these characters, it's interesting to make links between their assumed identities in the acting exercises and their real identities. Likewise, their assorted romantic bonds demonstrate that this relatively small theatrical world can be alternately comforting and constricting.
Although this play is a two-hour stretch in various ways, it's a worthwhile exposure to many of the issues that actors confront long before they become fictitious characters facing an audience.
"Circle Mirror Transformation" runs through March 22 in the Studio Theatre at Howard Community College, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway in Columbia. For ticket info, call 443-518-1500 or go to http://www.repstage.org.