Pulitzer prize winner Annie Baker’s 2009 play was staged in 2013 by London’s Royal Court theatre, in a production directed by James Macdonald, who also directed Baker’s more recent work John, which has just finished a much-lauded run at the National. Both plays explore emotional faultlines.
The setting is realistic: a rehearsal space with mirrored walls (one reflects the audience); a clock showing times between 1pm and 4pm; an alcove with a first-aid box fixed to the wall (Samal Blak’s set). The action shows shifting relationships among four participants in a theatre-workshop class and their teacher over six weeks. Overall, the impression is that the writer is also involved in a workshop exercise: how to craft a play.
Situations and acting styles conform to the model of early naturalism’s “slice of life”: the world observed through the fourth wall; dialogue reflecting current expectations of “everyday” language – vocabulary, sentence structurelessness and pauses. But, lacking naturalism’s examination of the social, economic and political forces that shape people alongside the emotional and psychological ones, the characters seem thinly drawn and two-dimensional. The focus on emotional entanglements explored through game-playing has a 60s-70s feel (RD Laing-lite), as does the presentation, which consists of 26 short scenes artificially interrupted by lights fading or snapping to blackout.
Bijan Sheibani’s direction is committed to the text, as are the performances. Schultz, the most coherently drawn character, is beautifully rendered by Con O’Neill (pictured). Home’s artistic director Walter Meierjohann compares Baker to Anton Chekhov, who famously said that a playwright who hangs a gun on the wall should make sure it is used. My eyes fixed hopefully on the first-aid box; it was never needed.
• Circle Mirror Transformation is at Home, Manchester, until 17 March
