Chico Play Rates a Ten on the Culture Scale

May 26, 2011 - PRLog -- Complaints about the lack of culture in the Chico-Redding corridor are loud and frequent. But I see something quite different from a “lack of culture”. There is plenty of culture and there are plenty of people interested in cultural events.

An example is the recent Julian Waterfall Pollack Trio performance in Red Bluff. It featured world class musicians and the small audience demanded an encore. The people that managed to show up were absolutely thrilled.

Another example is the play now showing at the 1078 Gallery in Chico, “Circle Mirror Transformation”. Written by Annie Baker (like Julian Waterfall Pollack, another NYU grad), this is directed by Shasta College’s Robert Soffian. This is a play that has won Obie (off-Broadway) Awards for Best New American Play and Performance.

My wife and I drove from Red Bluff, where the sky was clear and sunny, to Chico, where we two tornadoes were moving through the County just a few miles south of Chico. You might say that we braved the possibility of death, or at least a good kick in the pants, by driving there during a sequence of warnings by the National Weather Bureau. But it was worth it!

“Circle Mirror Transformation” is a study of a group of characters involved in an acting class. For those people who enjoy good character development, this play has it in spades. There are only five actors in the play, but by the end of the night the audience knew enough about them - and their personal secrets - to feel their pain and their joys.

The set at the 1078 Gallery is sparse, as you might expect in an art gallery, but the actors and audience are in each others’ faces. It is close-up and personal from every angle. Technology is not the emphasis here (though the music is particularly good) and does not distract the audience from the play.

The author, Annie Baker, left little to chance. She has taken acting class herself (though she claims to be a “terrible actor”) and she knew just what buttons to push in each character. Her characterizations are so real – and so well acted – that the audience showed empathetic emotional responses at times.

It would be difficult to say if any particular actor "stood out" in this play. The performances were dead on. Heidi Henshaw, fairly new to the role of Marty, the class leader, was very strong in her performance. Julie Ricker, playing an indolent teenager, was so good that I believed her, initially, to actually be an irritating teenager. Eventually, she spun my head around, more or less stealing some of the later moments in the play. John Truit, Eilyne Davis and Dean Williams rounded out the cast and were all exceptionally strong in their performances.

“Circle Mirror Transformation” plays in Chico at the 1078 Gallery May 26, and finishes on Friday, May 27. If you’ve wanted some “culture”, this is your opportunity.

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The 1078 Gallery is in downtown Chico, at 820 Broadway. The play is a production of the Root Theatre group...www.TheRootTheatre.com