THEATER REVIEW: Complicated but courageous humans — Rogue Theater Company production explores flaws, vulnerabilities and victories in 'Circle Mirror Transformation'

By LUCIE K. SCHEUER for the Rogue Valley Times Sep 21, 2023

There is something about actors and an empty stage. Something about the space they inhabit, beckoning them — and us — to be fully present. The actors take their places, revealing their stories like kinetoscopes, frame by frame. We get the chance to experience their confusion, desires, desperation and pain — at least in the latest offering from the Rogue Theater Company “Circle Mirror Transformation,” playing at Grizzly Peak Winery through Oct. 1.

The play focuses on a group of adults and a soon-to-be junior high school student taking a six-week creative drama class at a community center in Vermont during the summer. The facilitator, Marty, played by Vilma Silva (ideally suited for this part), has designed the class around group therapy exercises — mirroring, psychodrama and family sculpting — all precursors to successful method acting. Over the course of those weeks, we watch the participants crack open, revealing more about their struggles with vulnerability and intimacy; each one at an emotional turning point.

Watching "Circle Mirror Transformation" is a bit like looking through a “Johari Window,” an exploratory practice designed in 1955 by two psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram. Within the framework the individual views themselves from different angles — the person they show to others, the parts they hide, the parts others can see but they cannot see and the parts of themselves that are unknown — until they become self-actualized.

It is interesting to observe the elements used to put this two-hour production together. There is lighting designer Chris Sackett’s effective use of lighting to change scenes; the silent ending of one episode blending into the beginning of another; punctuating pauses; humor arising from awkward silences, all with great timing and direction by Robynn Rodriguez. Add in the five, finely-tuned actors, and it's a living, moving diorama, only stopping long enough to let us digest the scenes.

Schultz, played by Gregory Linington, is an interesting study. He’s a middle-aged carpenter, recently divorced, somewhat shy, vulnerable and kind. He’s also emotionally needy and really stuck. Schultz is looking for someone to fix him or complete him. And he thinks he's found that person in Theresa (Kjerstine Anderson), a group member and actress just coming off a breakup, who is also vulnerable and searching.

There’s a complexity and spark to Theresa that keeps Schultz and playgoers on their toes. Will she be happy now that she has escaped an unrelenting boyfriend and an uncaring New York? During a particularly gripping exercise where she is supposed to be mirroring another group member, she yells, “If you really love someone, you don’t make them feel bad about themselves!”

Linington and Anderson really understand the approach-avoidance issues they are refining in both their characters and continue to demonstrate them even after their characters’ brief affair.

Lauren, played by Thilini Dissanayake, presents as an impatient teenager, shy and uncertain. But as we get to know her better, we see she is trying to find her voice while caught between two, warring parents.Lauren is the conscience of the group. She wonders, “Are we going to be doing any real acting?” To which she is told she is acting, because acting is the art of revealing oneself.

And then we have James, a tortured college professor with unresolved anger issues, played compassionately by Jeffrey King, who is married to determined Marty, the group facilitator.

We discover their marriage is in trouble. James has shut down, and Marty has had enough. And yet she recalls fondly the night she fell in love with him. She was at a wedding sleeping on a hotel floor. James had the mat next to hers. And even though the lights had been turned off, she says, “I felt seen — I could feel him smiling at me in the dark.”

There are some funny, awkward moments when the group tries structuring Schultz’s childhood bedroom and it doesn’t quite work. There are revealing moments when each participant chooses then reads another’s scrap of paper upon which they have written a secret they’ve never shared.

Although playwright Annie Baker has created some identifiable, fallible characters, she might have allowed them to experience some deeper realizations and insights. There could have been a bit more resolution to some of their conflicts — but there’s only so much one can do in a six-week course, or in this case, a two-hour play.

Interestingly, if you combined the personalities and strengths of these five individuals, you might have one really self-realized individual. But we are not perfect. We’re emotionally flawed, complicated but courageous human beings. You get a real sense of it when you see this play.

"Circle Mirror Transformation" plays at 1 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays, through Oct.1, at Grizzly Peak Winery, 1600 E. Nevada St., Ashland. Regular tickets are $35.

See roguetheatercompany.com or call 541-205-9190 for showtimes, tickets and information, including special showings and talkbacks.

Reach Ashland-based writer Lucie K. Scheuer at LucieScheuer19@gmail.com.