By: centraljersey.com
Not because the actress is prone to making snap decisions, but because she wanted to keep her word.
Earlier this year, Ms. Duncan – famous for her work on stage and television – had to step down from her role in the world premier of Joe DiPietro’s Creating Claire because of illness.
She wasn’t feeling well in the spring, but tried to press on with rehearsals, and even did some interviews to promote the play.
"I was completely disoriented, I didn’t know where I was, I was throwing up every night," she says. "I started to think I had Alzheimer’s, then I started to think I was dying, that I had some terrible disease."
Someone with the production suggested Ms. Duncan get a blood test. The doctor called the next day and ordered her to a hospital, her heart was in risk of stopping, and her kidneys at risk of failing. It turned out that she had taken an overdose of Vitamin D because the dosage on the bottle was mislabeled.
"I was this close to dying, so I had to pull out of the play obviously," Ms. Duncan says. So when David Saint, George Street’s artistic director, asked her to star in Circle Mirror Transportation she said yes right away.
"I wanted to make good on my promise to do something here," says Ms. Duncan. "So I just said, ‘Yeah,’ without reading it.’"
After reading Circle Mirror Transformation – which is running at the theater in New Brunswick through Oct. 31 – Ms. Duncan started to get an idea of how challenging it is. Ms. Baker’s play made its premier at Playwrights Horizons in New York, and went on to win Obie Awards for best American play and ensemble performance.
Ms. Duncan plays Marty, who teaches an acting class in a community center in Vermont. In the class are Marty’s husband, James, Schultz, a 48-year-old man, Theresa, who’s 35, and 16-year-old Lauren. The class goes through strange acting exercises, like counting in order and playing "explosion tag," a version of the backyard game where players pretend to explode when they’re tagged.
Drama happens between classes. Shultz and Theresa talk a bit – about where they live, and Schultz’ divorce (though he still wears a wedding ring). They flirt and eventually date, though no one ever says so or acknowledges the relationship, it’s a classic example of showing, not telling.
Some relationships form and others crumble. Through their actions and conversation, and without much of a plot, the characters reveal more of themselves – their personalities and conflicts.
"It’s different, and it’s going to take a lot of careful work," Ms. Duncan says. "It was very successful in New York, at Playwrights Horizon, and hopefully we can deliver the same."
Part of the challenge for the actors is capturing the rhythm of Ms. Baker’s dialogue. The script contains lots of pauses and moments of silence. Ms. Duncan says there are specific instructions as to how many beats each pause or moment of silence is.
"It’s almost like learning vocal choreography," she says. "Usually you get a script and you have your lines, and you find your pauses and where, organically, you feel it will go," she says. "Ms. Baker’s way of writing is very measured and metered and dictated, so it’s hard to learn." Ms. Duncan’s says Circle Mirror Transformation can be challenging for audiences because silence can make people uneasy. That’s one of Ms. Baker’s intents in this age of texting and cell phones where everyone’s doing five things at once.
"The onslaught of external stimuli is exhausting, so her point is the only dangerous zone to go to these days is quiet, it makes people nervous," Ms. Duncan says. "It makes people nervous socially, it makes people really nervous in a theater situation."
As she tries to keep her class together and maintain a positive outlook for everyone, Ms. Duncan’s character in the play is going through a lot.
"I think she’s sort of making a last-ditch effort to save a marriage that’s in trouble," Ms. Duncan says. "I think she’s a nurturer, I think probably, she was brought up in a straight-laced (way).
"I think she was a good girl growing up and then maybe got to college and went, ‘I’m going to do what I’m going to do.’ And became part of that hippie movement." That has led to complications in her marriage, while she holds onto her liberal values, her husband is more of a "reformed hippie," according to Ms. Duncan.
Circle Mirror Transformation also has its share of humor, particularly when 16-year-old Lauren is certain a man she saw on the subway is Jewish, even though he spouted anti-Semitic rants. Another funny moment involves Marty and Theresa discussing a certain type of hair dye.
Some audience members may be surprised to see Ms. Duncan play this kind of role, but the actress who’s famous for her pixie haircut and smile, has a varied stage background. She has been appearing in movies, television and on stage for 40 years, and is best known for her work on the ’80s sitcom, The Hogan Family and as the spokeswoman in a long-running series of commercials for Wheat Thins.
sHer Broadway work as resulted in three Tony nominations – in 1969 for her role in a musical of The Canterbury Tales, in 1971 for The Boy Friend and in 1980 for Peter Pan. Other Broadway credits include My One and Only and playing Roxie Hart in Chicago, which she cites as one of her favorite part.
Off-Broadway, Ms. Duncan has appeared in plays like a 2002 staging of A.G. Gurney’s The Fourth Wall (directed by Mr. Saint), and has appeared throughout the country in stagings of South Pacific, The Glass Menagerie and Love Letters.
She describes her fellow actors in Circle Mirror Transformation as the "sweetest cast you could hope to work with, to a person." They include Tom Riis Farrell, who just finished a run in Chicago, Sandie Rosa, Amanda Sykes and Nick Wyman.
Directing is George Street favorite Anders Cato, who has helmed acclaimed versions of I Am My Own Wife, Doubt, Souvenir and The Seafarer there. Ms. Duncan says the director and cast spent a lot of time discussing their characters in order to nail each of their intricacies.

