Life has no rehearsals

Rebecca Gibney (Packed to the Rafters) makes her Sydney Theatre Company debut in this humorous and heartbreaking mosaic of daily life. With a knockout ensemble cast also featuring Nicholas Brown (Long Forgotten Dream, Still Point Turning) and Ahunim Abebe, Circle Mirror Transformation is a masterpiece of simple beauty and laugh-out-loud relatability by one of America’s most exciting playwrights: Pulitzer Prize-winner, Annie Baker.

In a modest, small-town community hall, five people – mostly strangers – come together to take part in an amateur acting class. The class is run by Marty (Gibney), a well-meaning, passionate and provocative teacher who leads the group in a series of drama games. She intends to get them in touch with their inner selves and let their imaginations run free. But as the exercises build in intensity and their lives become further intertwined, real-life drama begins to seep into the curriculum.

Director Dean Bryant (Dear Evan Hansen, Bloom) continues a winning run at STC with a play that unearths spectacular gems from seemingly unassuming moments. From the quietly devastating to the hilariously familiar, Baker’s script takes human life and puts it on breathtakingly intimate display.