Circle Mirror Transformation, a DramaDogs production directed by Ken Gilbert, is a play about people learning to be actors. More specifically, it depicts four residents of a small Vermont town coming together for a six-week acting workshop offered by the community center. This sounds like it could have all the excitement of watching maple sap drip, but there is a lot more life and vibrancy on tap here than one might imagine.

Written by Annie Baker, a young playwright already of great renown, Circle Mirror Transformation premiered in 2009 off-Broadway and won a 2010 Obie for Best New American Play. Baker’s style of dialogue is hyper-realistic, with every “um” and “uh” placed with great intention, and pauses designated in the script by length: “two-second,” “five-second.”

The characters make their entrances in an organic manner, with lights up, before the audience even realizes the play has started. They wander in, put down their bags, take off their shoes, check their phones, sneak looks at each other and at themselves in the mirror — all the things you do when you come into a class for the first time. It provides a good introduction to these characters, little glimpses of them and how they approach this new situation.

Soon we are launched into the action as the class gets started and they begin a series of acting exercises. Each scene is a little slice of life — awkward moments, flirtation between characters, uncomfortable efforts to offer what the teacher is asking for.

It is fascinating to learn about these characters by seeing the way they bounce off each other, relating as new acquaintances, but also as stand-ins for others in their lives — parents, past partners — in the context of scenes they improvise for the class.

E. Bonnie Lewis, co-artistic director of DramaDogs along with Gilbert, is Marty, the acting teacher. She is warm and quirky and has clear ideas about such things should be taught. Lewis, who must have conducted many classes like this over her long career in theater, is wonderful in the role. She manages to walk that line between the character’s honest enthusiasm for her craft and her underlying world-weariness, bringing a welcome multi-dimensional element and guiding the proceedings with a steady hand.

Craig Scott is James, Marty’s husband. Together, they run the community center and teach the arts courses. He is a mellow, middle-aged guy, a supportive spouse excited to take his wife’s acting class. James participates enthusiastically, but we come to find out he has his difficulties in life as well. Scott plays the part with deep empathy and heart.

As Theresa, a self-possessed actress in her mid-30s who recently moved to town from New York City and still smarting from a painful breakup, Michelle Osborne is magnetic, providing the energetic heart of the play. Osborne is sparkling and engaging, yet doesn’t flinch from putting Theresa’s less-than-poised moments out there under the harsh lights.

Joe Andrieu is Schultz, a recently divorced carpenter in his late 40s with a passion for pursuing his art, and does a fine job of exploring his needy but also charming nature, presenting him lovingly as a flawed but goodhearted person. 

Maria Oliveira is delightful as Lauren, the shy teenager, an aspiring actress frustrated with all the esoteric exercises in the class. The moment when she is alone in the studio and lets loose in front of the mirror is a gratifying peek into her deeper self.

There are many of these delicious little discoveries throughout the evening, and at the end it is clear that while we have been watching something seemingly commonplace, the lives of these five people — like all of us — are anything but common. Among their disappointments and challenges are drops of sweetness, hard-won and all the more valuable for it.

Circle Mirror Transformation will be performed again at 8 p.m. this Thursday through Saturday at Center Stage Theater. Click here for tickets and information.

— Justine Sutton is a Santa Barbara freelance writer and frequent Noozhawk reviewer. The opinions expressed are her own.