We see that their choices aren’t inevitable, that their sense of who they are might shift. Accompanying the class over six weeks, dipping into exercises and breaks, with silences that hold and fill, lets us walk alongside the characters. Sian Clifford gives her a straight-arrow positivity, but following Schultz to the bathroom for a breaktime fumble, she also shows you the resolve: another chore to face.īaker honours human complexity, writing what might almost be a sitcom plus time. He begins a relationship with Theresa, who has turned her back on the big city. Eliminated from one game, he gazes forlornly into a mirror, as if cast adrift on ice. Photograph: Marc BrennerĬon O’Neill, as the recently divorced carpenter Schultz, is almost burly with disappointment, a big man with a small voice and a tight chipmunk grin. That’s not how their story goes.Īnthony Ofoegbu as James and Con O’Neill as Schultz in Circle Mirror Transformation. Her husband, a grave Anthony Ofoegbu, may have joined the class to support her. There’s a brittleness within Amelia Bullmore’s scrubbed transparency as Marty, the wholesome ash-blonde plait topping a complicated smile. The director Bijan Sheibani, known for physically dynamic productions, tenderly holds Baker’s hesitance and hush.Ĭircle was one of the first of Baker’s plays to receive a major British production, with Imelda Staunton in 2013, and it’s fascinating to see it refracted through other actors, each sitting differently with their character. Each participant takes a turn describing one of the others in first-person monologues that reveal gusts of compassion or disclose a growing crush. Warm-up games can turn chilly, while a dialogue of nonsense words drifts into deep waters. But the class is geared more to therapy than performance: five confused people, tunnelling away from their relationships and careers, reveal more of themselves than they expect. “Are we going to be doing any real acting?” complains Lauren, a withdrawn teenager who longs to play Maria in her school’s production of West Side Story. Over six weeks, Marty leads her small class through word games, trust exercises and role play.
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