An acting class helps transform its students

Annie Baker`s play is about evolving relationships in a drama class.

New York: An acting class whose members can`t even count to 10 together without stepping on one another`s lines is apparently in big trouble.Group exercises to free the inner spirit constitute the main action of Annie Baker`s humorous "Circle Mirror Transformation," a play about evolving relationships in a small-town drama class.

Only four people in slow-paced Shirley, Vt., sign up for a six-week summer acting class, run by a community center co-director named Marty, and one of them is her husband, James (a subtle, sturdy performance by Peter Friedman). Deirdre O`Connell is luminous as the positive, free-spirited Marty, who tells her students that she wants the class to be a place where they feel safe and open and "willing to go with it." Her methods may seem strange to those not familiar with, say, impersonating a piece of furniture. She urges the students to "embody the qualities" of inanimate objects or play Explosion Tag. But working together on these and other exercises, each class member eventually is transformed, some in quite unexpected ways. The three other students include a recently divorced, middle-aged man called Schultz (perceptively acted by Reed Birney). Birney imbues Schultz with an insecure charm that turns bitter when he feels thwarted in his romantic goals. Participant Theresa, a vivacious, attractive single woman in her 30s, is played with lovely openness by Heidi Schreck. Having fled a bad relationship in New York, Theresa`s enthusiasm for her new life and for the class activities provides a good energy for the more repressed group members. The most comical cast member is Tracee Chimo as Lauren, an introverted teenager. Encased in baggy clothing, Chimo scurries about the stage, often staring at the floor, cautiously participating in exercises that clearly seem painful or inexplicable to her. Her double-takes at some of Marty`s instructions are priceless, and Lauren tends to inadvertently shut down certain exercises. When the class takes turns speaking words spontaneously to make a sentence, she blurts out "period." Director Sam Gold gives a light-hearted air to much of the production, garnering nuanced laughs out of the exercises and the students` insecurities. Baker develops her characters slowly through their interactions each week in class, which is the only place we see them. Naturally, their real, offstage lives gradually infiltrate the classroom, revealing insights and transformations both humorous and heartbreaking. "Circle Mirror Transformation" is playing off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons` Peter Jay Sharp Theatre through Nov. 1. Bureau Report