Five adults come together at a community center for a six-week class of theater exercises. Over the course of the two-act play, “Circle Mirror Transformation” by Annie Baker, relationships will begin and end, secrets will be revealed and people will be transformed, but not necessarily in the ways they expected.
Countercurrent Collective is performing the play through March 14 at the Waldo County YMCA in Belfast.
“Circle Mirror Transformation” is funny and fraught, surprising and slightly surreal, insightful and intuitive. The cast of three women and two men form a cohesive ensemble that realistically captures the foibles and eccentricities of the characters who are achingly familiar to anyone who’s been part of theater game exercises.
Baker’s plays are full of silences, long pauses and slow, deliberate pacing. They lend themselves perfectly to settings outside a traditional theater. Countercurrent Collective demonstrated its affinity for Baker’s work last summer when it produced her three-actor play “The Aliens” on a patch of grass behind a storefront in downtown Belfast. That show is set behind a coffee shop in Shirley, Vermont, the same town where “Circle Mirror Transformation” takes place.
This is not the first production of the play in northern Maine. True North Theatre produced “Circle Mirror Transformation” in June 2023 at the Cyrus Pavilion at the University of Maine.
Countercurrent, founded recently by Courtney Hayes and John Jurcheck, is committed to creating immersive theater experiences that are site specific. So, instead of performing its latest offering in a theater with a set, it takes the audience into the Wellness Room at the Belfast Y. This makes the audience experience the class as if they were participants rather than observers.
Jennifer DeJoy (Marty) leads the class that includes Alan Gibson (James), Stefan Durham (Schultz), Hayes (Theresa) and Isabel Furko (Lauren). Marty and James are married while Theresa and Schultz are recovering from breakups. Sixteen-year-old Lauren, whose home life is challenging, is just angry about everything.
One of the highlights of the play is the scenes when each participant pretends to be a classmate and describes them in the first person. The actors in the ensemble are equally talented and work beautifully together but Furko could turn the anger up just a notch so that it envelopes Lauren like a dust cloud.
Counterculture Collective is a great addition to Belfast’s eclectic arts scene. It pushes the boundaries of theater in a way that engages and challenges audiences that have only experienced plays in traditional indoor spaces, such as the Belfast Maskers’ Basil Burwell Community Theater, or outside productions of Williams Shakespeare’s plays.
By performing “Circle Mirror Transformation” in the Y’s Wellness Room, with audience members sitting in a semicircle on folding chairs with their winter boots and coats left outside the entrance, Counterculture Collective beautifully immerses theatergoers in the heart and soul of Baker’s play. It is a transformative experience unique in Maine’s theatrical landscape.
Counterculture Collective’s production of “Circle Mirror Transformation” will be performed at 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sundays through March 14 at the Waldo County YMCA, 157 Lincolnville Ave. in Belfast. For ticket information, visit becountercurrent.com.