I’ve now seen American writer Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation three times in the past dozen years or thereabouts. It’s a play that continues to surprise, delight and gently move.

The lights rise on a dance studio-like space in a suburban community hall, the multipurpose home to all manner of activities including, in this case, a weekly drama/therapy workshop facilitated by former California free spirit, Marty (played by Rebecca Gibney).

Sydney Theatre Company’s Circle Mirror Transformation. Photo © Daniel Boud

Signed up to roll around on fit balls and pretend to be trees are Marty’s longtime partner James (Cameron Daddo); local carpenter Schultz (Nicholas Brown), freshly divorced and still feeling the sting; thirty-something Theresa (Jessie Lawrence), on the run from a bad relationship and a failed acting career in New York; and the reticent teenaged Lauren (Ahunim Abebe), who just wishes Marty’s so-called ‘drama’ class would include some actual ‘acting’. She has eyes on the role of Maria in her high school production of West Side Story.

In episodes spanning six weeks and via their participation in Marty’s theatre games – which range from the hackneyed (the excruciating stuff of corporate retreats...