"Circle Mirror Transformation" at Yellow Tree Theatre

Circle Mirror Transformation is an odd little play, full of awkward pauses, interrupted conversations, and silly games. But it's also surprisingly deep and poignant. It'll make you laugh, think, and feel, which is my favorite kind of play. I saw it at the Guthrie a few years ago and it was one of my favorites of the year, and I knew it was a perfect choice for Yellow Tree Theatre. Circle Mirror Transformation and Yellow Tree are a great match - both are slightly quirky and offbeat, but with a lot of heart and great storytelling.

The entire 90-minute play takes place in a six-week community acting class in a small town in Vermont. We mark the passage of time with a changing sign on the bulletin board announcing the week. The play is constructed as a series of short scenes depicting class exercises, as well as interactions between the characters during breaks or before class. As the play progresses we piece together more and more of each person's story. Teacher Marty (Doree Du Toit, read an interesting story about her acting journey here) wants to share her love of the art with her students, one of which is her husband James, an original hippie (Kurt Schweickhardt). Theresa (Yellow Tree co-founder Jessica Lind Peterson) was a struggling actor in NYC until breaking up with her boyfriend and moving to Vermont a few months ago. Lauren (Tara Borman) is a typically sullen teenager who signed up for the class to help her win the role of Maria in her school's upcoming production of West Side Story, and wants to know if they're going to do any "real acting." The final student, Schultz (Dan Hopman), is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis, recently divorced and dealing with living on his own and trying to make a new start.

James and Marty act out a scene as Lauren looks on

Each of these characters comes to the class for a different reason and gets something different out of it, but as the title suggest, each is transformed, in big or small ways. We witness the entire course of a relationship between Theresa and Schultz (beautifully, painfully, and realistically played by Jessica and Dan), from nervous attraction, to giddy infatuation, to a really awkward breakup, to some sort of closure. Marty is not quite as together as she seems and has some issues of her own to work through, with or without the help of her husband. Lauren is trying to escape some family issues, which she's finally able to admit in a really fascinating class exercise - each class member tells another person's life story, which reveals as much about the speaker as it does about the subject. This play is really a character study, and playwright Annie Baker has quite brilliantly allowed us to gain vital tidbits of information about each of them in an unconventional way, without telling the full story. One gets the sense that this is just a short snippet in each character's life, a full and complex life that started long before the action of the play began and continues long after it ends. As director Andy Frye (who does a beautiful job bringing out the depth of each of these characters as well as making great use of the space) says in the program notes, "the exercises performed serve only as a catalyst for what's really going on with these complex characters." As the play progresses, the exercises take on more and more meaning as we learn about the people performing them.

an intense moment between Schultz and Theresa

Costume, set, and props designer Sarah Bahr has perfectly created the world in which this story plays out. The slight wardrobe changes effectively signal a new day while allowing for quick changes between scenes. The Yellow Tree stage is about as bare as I've ever seen it - the back wall is painted a dull yellow, adorned simply with a barre, mirror, and bulletin board. The only set pieces are a hula hoop, stool, and and ball. It looks like any well-used community center classroom where any number of activities have taken place over the years.

I almost wish I could participate in a class like this, that's less about acting than it is about connecting more deeply with oneself and one's fellow human beings. On second thought, maybe that's exactly what (good) acting is, as perfectly illustrated in this production. This five-person cast, with no weak link among them, fully rises to the requirements of the material - being fully present and in the moment, speaking the way real people speak, with all the awkwardness of real life. If you've never made the trip up to Osseo, now is a great time to do it. Circle Mirror Transformation is one of the best shows I've seen at Yellow Tree Theatre. If you love funny, quirky, real, and poignant theater, you won't be disappointed. Playing now through February 24.

"Still Life with Iris" at Yellow Tree Theatre

For the past year and a half I've seen every Yellow Tree Theatre production with a group of co-workers from our nearby office.  The group changes in size and composition depending on the show and people's schedules, but we always have a good time at the theater (and the lovely and delicious Nectar Wine Bar in downtown Osseo).  After seeing Still Life with Iris this week, my friends said to me, "I can't wait to read what you write about this because I don't quite know what to make of it!"  I'm not sure I do either, but I'll do my best.

Still Life with Iris is a fantastical tale set in the fictional world of Nocturno, where the inhabitants create everything that exists in the world.  They paint spots on lady bugs, teach the wind to howl, and lift the fog.  They're the worker bees behind the universe.  And they seem quite happy to toil away every night, fulfilling that last minute storm order.  Most importantly, they must take care of their coat, for their coat is what holds in their memory.  If it rips, they start to forget things; if they take it off, they forget their entire life, everyone and everything they've ever know.  (What happens when they take a shower?  Sorry, there's no place for logic in Nocturno!) 

Our heroine Iris is chosen to go to Great Island, which is not as great as it seems.  First her mother's coat is removed so she'll forget she ever had a daughter, and then Iris' coat is removed so she won't mourn for her own life.  She's taken to Great Island to be the daughter of the Goods, who have one perfect specimen of everything.  Hence they only wear one shoe, one sleeve, one eyebrow, in a delightfully asymmetric world.  But Iris is a special girl, she knows something is off, something existed before she got to this island that she can't quite remember.  So she escapes, and is aided in her attempt by none other than 18th century composer Mozart (whom she affectionately calls Moz) and the fictional Annabel Lee, from the Edgar Allen Poe poem.  They manage to escape and find the lost memory coats, and Iris returns home to the life she loved and remembered.  If I were to try to make sense of this wild ride, I'd say that we need to actively hold on to our memories, our past.  Not just our own past but our family's past.  Like in the genealogical show Who Do You Think You Are (Fridays on NBC), in which celebrities search for their ancestors' stories, we need to remember our collective past in order to live our best present.  My great-aunt recently passed away, the last remaining member of her generation, leaving behind a treasure trove of stuff in my great-grandparents' house.  I feel like I've found a few lost buttons and threads of my coat, looking around in that beautiful, run-down, stuffy old house.

As always, the cast features wonderful members of the Yellow Tree family (for that's what it feels like).  The director, Andy Frye, has himself appeared on stage in Miracle on Christmas Lake II and [title of show].  The always captivating Mary Fox plays Iris, giving her childlike strength and wisdom and curiosity.  She's a hero we can root for.  I'm not quite sure why Mozart is there, but I'm glad he is, with his Austrian accent and oversized keyboard.  Yellow Tree newcomer Nathan Surprenant is a natural charismatic presence on stage and I look forward to seeing more of him.  Molly McLain gives a delightfully wacky performance with a Cockney accent as Annabel Lee.  Doree Du Toit plays Iris' mother; she has the role of the mourning mother down pat, having played a mother who loses her daughter in Steel Magnolias and Our Town.  Our favorite nerdy stereotypical Minnesotan couple from Christmas Lake, Carolyn Trapskin and Ryan Nelson, are reunited here as Mr. and Mrs. Good.  Their characters are just as quirky but much more evil.  I was particularly impressed with Carolyn's ability to gracefully maneuver in her dress with a long side train while wearing only one high-heeled shoe, and with her maniacal laugh.

The show has a wonderful look.  Yellow Tree regulars might do a double-take when they walk into the theater, as I did.  The stage is on the opposite side of the room, and the curtain dividing the stage from the lobby is gone, making room for the two story set with lots of stairs and doors and windows to play with (set design by Katie Phillips).  The costumes by Sarah Bahr are adorable (striped socks and colorful patchwork sweaters in Nocturno), sleek (the Goods in their stark, asymmetrical black), and whimsical (Annabel Lee's fairy-like layers).

I'm not sure how well I did in making sense of this play, but I'm not sure sense is what it's about.  It's more about the feeling that's created.  And as always at Yellow Tree, it's a good feeling.  Their next production is one of my favorite plays, The Glass Menagerie.  Unlike musicals, I don't have a lot of favorite plays (it's pretty much The Glass Menagerie and Tom Stoppard's Arcadia), so it goes without saying that I'm looking forward to it!

"Steel Magnolias" at Yellow Tree Theatre

This is my second season attending theater at Yellow Tree Theatre in Osseo (it's their fourth season), and I have to say again how much I love the idea of great theater in a strip mall in the suburbs at an affordable price.  As a suburbanite, I sometimes grow weary of driving into the city and dealing with traffic and parking issues to see a show.  So it's refreshing to go to a nearby town to an unassuming strip mall and enter a warm inviting space "where good stories live."  I love Yellow Tree's mission - to bring theater into the community and make it a part of the community.  If you're on the North and/or West side of the cities, you should definitely check them out.  And when you go, don't go to a chain restaurant in Maple Grove.  Check out Nectar Wine Bar on the quaint main street of downtown Osseo, a town that looks like it could be anywhere in outstate Minnesota.  You don't have to go to the city to get great food, wine, and entertainment.

Most people have seen the 1989 move Steel Magnolias, but it began its life as a 1987 Off-Broadway play written by Robert Harling (starring recent Emmy winner Margo Martindale, and Rosemary Prinz who portrayed half of soap's first supercouple, As the World Turns' Penny and Jeff).  Unlike the movie, the play takes place solely in Truvy's beauty salon and the only characters seen are the six women - Truvy and her customers.  Everyone else in their lives (men, children, dogs) are talked about but never seen.  In fact there really isn't any action in the play; it's six women talking about their lives, which really puts the focus on the friendship between these women.  Through laughter and tears and insults, they're there to support each other through life.

The show takes place on four Saturday mornings over a couple of years, marked by events in young Shelby's life - the morning of her wedding; the following Christmas when she announces that she is pregnant, which poses a danger to her health; shortly before her mother donates a kidney to her; and (spoiler alert!) after her death.  Truvy (Jennifer Allton) presides over these events while washing and setting hair and doing nails.  Her new assistant Annelle (the appealing Amy Bouthilette) transforms from an insecure abandoned wife, to a party girl, to a born-again Christian, to a wife and mother.  Jennifer Kirkeby is the delightfully grumpy and matter-of-fact Ousier, and Mary Cutler is her adversary, the wealthy and recently widowed Clairee.  But the heart of the story is Shelby (Stephanie Cousins) and her mother M'Lynn (Doree Du Toit).  The two actors have a believably loving and antagonistic relationship as mother and daughter.  M'Lynn wants to protect her daughter from her own bad choices, and is frustrated that she can't.  The last scene is a killer as M'Lynn rails against the world for what happened to her daughter.  You might need tissues, but it won't last long.  As Truvy says, "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion."  Which is only one of many great quotes in this play.

Yellow Tree's small stage is transformed into a colorful, busy, and homey salon, chock full of beauty products and chotchkes.  The bad 80s fashions and hairdos complete the picture.  Southern accents are employed to varying degrees of success.  All in all, Steel Magnolias an entertaining evening of theater at the lovely Yellow Tree Theatre.  The rest of their season consists of a sequel to their wacky Christmas comedy, Miracle on Christmas Lake II, an "adventure fantasy drama" Still Life with Iris, and the classic Tennessee Williams play (and one of my favorites) The Glass Menagerie.  Another great season of theater in the 'burbs.