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The Vermont Plays
Includes The Aliens: an exploration of friendship and music in the lives of three misfits behind a coffee shop; Circle Mirror Transformation: a meditation on life within the rhythms of an adult drama class; Nocturama: a dark comedy in which a grown son returns home to live with his mother and stepfather; and Body Awareness: a close look at a nontraditional family dealing with an unexpected guest. (Theater Communications Group)
"Baker may just have the subtlest way with exposition of anyone writing for the theater today ... There is something distinctly Chekhovian in the way her writing accrues weight and meaning simply through compassionate, truthful observation."
--Charles Isherwood, New York Times
"Baker has a soft spot for the abandoned, the discarded, the hard-luck case ... her heartbreaking works of staggering focus have actually rescued realism from the aesthetic scrap heap."
--Helen Shaw, Timeout New York
"Baker is a writer whose plays have a quiet, hypnotic charm a grace and humor. She's able to take ordinary, low-key situations--a small-town acting class, guys wasting time in an alley behind a café--and fill them with gentle comedy, generosity of spirit and an eye (and ear) for the foibles that make us all so hopelessly human."
--Village Voice
"Baker may just have the subtlest way with exposition of anyone writing for the theater today ... There is something distinctly Chekhovian in the way her writing accrues weight and meaning simply through compassionate, truthful observation."
--Charles Isherwood, New York Times
"Baker has a soft spot for the abandoned, the discarded, the hard-luck case ... her heartbreaking works of staggering focus have actually rescued realism from the aesthetic scrap heap."
--Helen Shaw, Timeout New York
"Baker is a writer whose plays have a quiet, hypnotic charm a grace and humor. She's able to take ordinary, low-key situations--a small-town acting class, guys wasting time in an alley behind a café--and fill them with gentle comedy, generosity of spirit and an eye (and ear) for the foibles that make us all so hopelessly human."
--Village Voice
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
34 people are currently reading
626 people want to read
About the author
Annie Baker
25 books266 followersBaker grew up in Amherst, Mass., and graduated from the Department of Dramatic Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She earned her MFA from Brooklyn College.
Her play Body Awareness was staged off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theater Company in May and June 2008. The play featured JoBeth Williams and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award. Circle Mirror Transformation premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in October 2009 and received Obie Awards for Best New American Play and Performance, Ensemble. Her play The Aliens, which premiered off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in April 2010, was a finalist for the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and shared the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play with Circle Mirror Transformation.
Baker's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya premiered at the Soho Repertory Theatre in June 2012 and was called a "funky, fresh new production" by a New York Times reviewer. Her play The Flick premiered at Playwrights Horizons in March 2013. A New York Times reviewer wrote, "Ms. Baker, one of the freshest and most talented dramatists to emerge Off Broadway in the past decade, writes with tenderness and keen insight." The play received the Obie Award for Playwriting in 2013.
Baker teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. She was one of seven playwrights selected to participate in the 2008 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab. In 2011 she was named a Fellow of United States Artists.
Her play Body Awareness was staged off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theater Company in May and June 2008. The play featured JoBeth Williams and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award. Circle Mirror Transformation premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in October 2009 and received Obie Awards for Best New American Play and Performance, Ensemble. Her play The Aliens, which premiered off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in April 2010, was a finalist for the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and shared the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play with Circle Mirror Transformation.
Baker's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya premiered at the Soho Repertory Theatre in June 2012 and was called a "funky, fresh new production" by a New York Times reviewer. Her play The Flick premiered at Playwrights Horizons in March 2013. A New York Times reviewer wrote, "Ms. Baker, one of the freshest and most talented dramatists to emerge Off Broadway in the past decade, writes with tenderness and keen insight." The play received the Obie Award for Playwriting in 2013.
Baker teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. She was one of seven playwrights selected to participate in the 2008 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab. In 2011 she was named a Fellow of United States Artists.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
December 27, 2017
I wasn’t enamoured of The Aliens, but Nocturama was the most sensitive exploration of mental health I’ve seen and Circle Mirror Transformation gets even better on a second read. Always concise, always tender, Annie Baker knows what’s up.
July 3, 2025
I love Annie Baker's work (previously I had read The Flick and seen her debut film Janet Planet). The Vermont Plays (The Aliens, Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, and Body Awareness) are all exceptional, and similar in style. Her works are set in rural towns in North East America, depicting strung-out mothers and their misfit children (often young adults struggling to break out as independent adults). They tend to speak tersely, often talking in short sentences, sometimes just interjections and monosyllables, but this belies their rich interiority. Her characters are new-age hippies, high-school drop-outs, depressed dope-heads, divorcees, and they might often seem cautious and hesitant to speak, but they all yearn for deep conversations—about art, about logic, about relationships, even about lexicography. The dialogue is laconic but broken up with moments of eruptive candor.
One of my favorite plays in this collection is Nocturama: Skaggs has moved in with his mother and her boyfriend after a break-up; he lazes around during the day smoking a bong waiting for his ex-girlfriend to email him back; his mother keeps asking if he is suicidal and nagging him to see her meditation healer. Although the channels of communication are always open, although he and his mother talk without any inhibitions on any taboo (mental health, porn and sex), they are still always talking past one another:
I love the way her characters over-share and yet still repeatedly fail to communicate, speaking with a disarming honesty that actually obfuscates the conversation. Judy wants Skaggs to see her healer; Skeggs changes the topic to fellatio; Judy tries to redirect back to the topic; Skaggs talks in wordy abstraction about "the inherent paralyzing quality of this thing I'm suffering through". There's too much information but not really any genuine conversation. Annie Baker's characters often well versed in the language of therapy; they are rarely judgmental about their feelings or desires; they talk openly about their happiness. But they are ill-equipped to actually talk about their problems. Talking, ironically, becomes another form of evasion and repression.
There's a quiet pain in all of these plays—the young men are jobless and unhappy, the mothers feel unfulfilled and under attack, their partners are disagreeable and peevish—and for many of them, especially the directionless youths stalled in adolescence, the solution comes not from talking it out but in getting out, leaving town, moving on. Annie Baker is a tremendously talented dramatist.
One of my favorite plays in this collection is Nocturama: Skaggs has moved in with his mother and her boyfriend after a break-up; he lazes around during the day smoking a bong waiting for his ex-girlfriend to email him back; his mother keeps asking if he is suicidal and nagging him to see her meditation healer. Although the channels of communication are always open, although he and his mother talk without any inhibitions on any taboo (mental health, porn and sex), they are still always talking past one another:
Judy: You're not so depressed that you can't sleep with someone. And then not be... not be a little nice to them the next morning.
Skaggs: We didn't sleep together. We messed around. I gave her oral sex.
Judy: Okay. Fine.
Skeggs: ... And she didn't reciprocate. Which I found to be extremely weird.
Judy: She didn't reciprocate? Maybe she was nervous.
Skaggs: Whatever.
Judy: huh. What were we talking about?
Skaggs: I was trying to communicate to you the inherent paralyzing quality of this thing I'm suffering through and the impossibility of
Judy: Sumi's coming into town next week. On Wednesday.
Skaggs: Oh my god.
Judy: I want you to see her. Just one...just one of the afternoon seminars. I'll pay for it.
I love the way her characters over-share and yet still repeatedly fail to communicate, speaking with a disarming honesty that actually obfuscates the conversation. Judy wants Skaggs to see her healer; Skeggs changes the topic to fellatio; Judy tries to redirect back to the topic; Skaggs talks in wordy abstraction about "the inherent paralyzing quality of this thing I'm suffering through". There's too much information but not really any genuine conversation. Annie Baker's characters often well versed in the language of therapy; they are rarely judgmental about their feelings or desires; they talk openly about their happiness. But they are ill-equipped to actually talk about their problems. Talking, ironically, becomes another form of evasion and repression.
There's a quiet pain in all of these plays—the young men are jobless and unhappy, the mothers feel unfulfilled and under attack, their partners are disagreeable and peevish—and for many of them, especially the directionless youths stalled in adolescence, the solution comes not from talking it out but in getting out, leaving town, moving on. Annie Baker is a tremendously talented dramatist.
July 24, 2018
(4.5/5)
it should come as no surprise that i loved all four of these plays, given that i haven't shut up about how i think annie baker is a genius on this website all summer. but anyway, i was actually kind of surprised i loved them if i'm being perfectly honest because i'm not a big fan of dark comedies and wasn't expecting these plays to be the first time i *understood* that genre. it might just be that a lot of people use "dark comedy" when describing things that are just edgy and cruel which is my least favorite type of thing in any medium, and these plays are decidedly not that. they're closer to tragedies that just veer so far into absurdism that you can't help but be amused and horrified at the same time. the only reason i'm not giving this the full five stars is that this collection is like an 8/10 album where one song just towers above the rest in quality. that "song" (play) is "circle mirror transformation," which takes all the things that drew me to baker's work in the first place and meshes them with a more traditional style of theatre. it's magical. (but more on that later). anyway: i love annie baker, i'm gonna buy "the antipodes" as soon as it's released, etc. etc.
INDIVIDUAL THOUGHTS:
the aliens: i was shocked by how sweet this play is, because it is for sure a lot to take in. my main observation here (not necessarily positive or negative) is that this play consistently seems like it's going to get more interesting than it ever does. lots of little details are brought up that intrigue me more than the main "storyline." i almost feel like this is sort of a test-run for the ideas and themes she'd explore later (and better, imo) in "the flick," but you know, it's a nice little show.
circle mirror transformation: easily the highlight of this collection maybe her best play overall? there are so many layers to this and it works so well on so many different levels. i think the structure is brilliant and the characters feel like people you know (which is a trait that is so commonplace in her plays that i almost take it for granted). it's beautiful
nocturama: i can see how people would not love or have problems with this play, but i thought it was a really relatable and sensitive depiction of how it feels to live with depression and that feeling of being sort of stuck where you are. this show is DARK and very angry, and not in a way that makes it seem romantic or edgy or anything, which i really admire.
body awareness: one thing that i love love love about this play is how every single character is wrong at some point. no one is right about everything, no one is wrong about everything, which is just a wonderful little detail that i feel like almost goes unnoticed. there's no clear answer to any of this. it's maybe my second favorite play here? i find this one fascinating considering it's the oldest play here, because in a ton of ways this is the perfect show for the era we live in w/r/t gender politics and is really prescient, but in other respects i think it might actually be kinda Problematic™ and might not age super well? we'll see
it should come as no surprise that i loved all four of these plays, given that i haven't shut up about how i think annie baker is a genius on this website all summer. but anyway, i was actually kind of surprised i loved them if i'm being perfectly honest because i'm not a big fan of dark comedies and wasn't expecting these plays to be the first time i *understood* that genre. it might just be that a lot of people use "dark comedy" when describing things that are just edgy and cruel which is my least favorite type of thing in any medium, and these plays are decidedly not that. they're closer to tragedies that just veer so far into absurdism that you can't help but be amused and horrified at the same time. the only reason i'm not giving this the full five stars is that this collection is like an 8/10 album where one song just towers above the rest in quality. that "song" (play) is "circle mirror transformation," which takes all the things that drew me to baker's work in the first place and meshes them with a more traditional style of theatre. it's magical. (but more on that later). anyway: i love annie baker, i'm gonna buy "the antipodes" as soon as it's released, etc. etc.
INDIVIDUAL THOUGHTS:
the aliens: i was shocked by how sweet this play is, because it is for sure a lot to take in. my main observation here (not necessarily positive or negative) is that this play consistently seems like it's going to get more interesting than it ever does. lots of little details are brought up that intrigue me more than the main "storyline." i almost feel like this is sort of a test-run for the ideas and themes she'd explore later (and better, imo) in "the flick," but you know, it's a nice little show.
circle mirror transformation: easily the highlight of this collection maybe her best play overall? there are so many layers to this and it works so well on so many different levels. i think the structure is brilliant and the characters feel like people you know (which is a trait that is so commonplace in her plays that i almost take it for granted). it's beautiful
nocturama: i can see how people would not love or have problems with this play, but i thought it was a really relatable and sensitive depiction of how it feels to live with depression and that feeling of being sort of stuck where you are. this show is DARK and very angry, and not in a way that makes it seem romantic or edgy or anything, which i really admire.
body awareness: one thing that i love love love about this play is how every single character is wrong at some point. no one is right about everything, no one is wrong about everything, which is just a wonderful little detail that i feel like almost goes unnoticed. there's no clear answer to any of this. it's maybe my second favorite play here? i find this one fascinating considering it's the oldest play here, because in a ton of ways this is the perfect show for the era we live in w/r/t gender politics and is really prescient, but in other respects i think it might actually be kinda Problematic™ and might not age super well? we'll see
March 12, 2017
Streamlined, real, and filled with dialogue that is clever and revealing without making it obvious just how clever and revealing it is. I love Baker's work, and I have to make sure to keep an eye on Seattle's theatre scene to make sure I don't miss productions (anymore). (I used to do a lot better job of that.)
Here I'd go 5 stars for The Aliens and Circle Mirror Transformation. Nocturama and Body Awareness are also both good, but a notch down perhaps. They also are more similar, which would of course not matter if you saw them produced, but their similarity probably works against them a bit here.
Don't miss The Flick. That still seems like the place to start. Baker's got real skills. Check her out one way or the other.
Here I'd go 5 stars for The Aliens and Circle Mirror Transformation. Nocturama and Body Awareness are also both good, but a notch down perhaps. They also are more similar, which would of course not matter if you saw them produced, but their similarity probably works against them a bit here.
Don't miss The Flick. That still seems like the place to start. Baker's got real skills. Check her out one way or the other.
February 27, 2021
These plays are full of aching. I read all four in one sitting on a Friday night, and each one had a moment that took my breath away. I just put The Flick, John, and The Antipodes on hold at the library, and if theatre is ever a thing again, I will 100% be looking out for Annie Baker's name. Her writing is so PRECISE. And human.
My book club discussed whether Baker is aware of her characters' blindspots -- specifically regarding their whiteness and their ableism -- and I think yes, that's part of her critique. These people think of themselves as woke. They want to talk about feelings. But then they stumble a bit when those feelings turn out to be messy. Like everyone does.
A quick gut-reaction ranking: 1) Circle Mirror Transformation, 2) Body Awareness, 3) The Aliens, and 4) Nocturama
My book club discussed whether Baker is aware of her characters' blindspots -- specifically regarding their whiteness and their ableism -- and I think yes, that's part of her critique. These people think of themselves as woke. They want to talk about feelings. But then they stumble a bit when those feelings turn out to be messy. Like everyone does.
A quick gut-reaction ranking: 1) Circle Mirror Transformation, 2) Body Awareness, 3) The Aliens, and 4) Nocturama
July 5, 2022
I really liked this collection, especially since they're the first plays I have read since my middle school reading of 12 Angry Men. I will definitely keep my eyes out for more plays in the future, reading one for me is very distinct compared to just reading regular dialogue in a novel. (Also no one talks about how fun reading plays are, it goes by so fast and I feel like a beast for reading 100 pages in one sitting)
As for the actual content of the book itself, the collection is 4 plays each set in Vermont each taking a snapshot people's everyday lives. No heroic journeys or incredibly dramatic tales, but seemingly genuine takes on friendships and family.
I enjoyed the play "the Aliens" the most, followed by "Circle Mirror Transformation." "Nocturama" and "Body Awareness" I felt were a bit of a step down from the first two, and while the Aliens and Circle Mirror Transformation are definitely 5-star reads I would give the other two 3 or 4 stars.
Props to Annie Baker for making these plays accessible and fun, I hope I get to see one of them in the future.
As for the actual content of the book itself, the collection is 4 plays each set in Vermont each taking a snapshot people's everyday lives. No heroic journeys or incredibly dramatic tales, but seemingly genuine takes on friendships and family.
I enjoyed the play "the Aliens" the most, followed by "Circle Mirror Transformation." "Nocturama" and "Body Awareness" I felt were a bit of a step down from the first two, and while the Aliens and Circle Mirror Transformation are definitely 5-star reads I would give the other two 3 or 4 stars.
Props to Annie Baker for making these plays accessible and fun, I hope I get to see one of them in the future.
January 26, 2026
i recently self-imposed a moratorium on buying books until i finish off all the half-read books in my room. checked off lydia davis yesterday, read the last two plays in this today. upon reopening, i immediately got embarassed with the memory of being completely blown away when reading the first two plays in september and then for some reason just banishing this book to my shelf for like five months. anyways. annie baker’s meticulously scripted pauses are by far the best part of her work. its a kind of playwriting ive never encountered before, where silence holds more weight than dialogue. the constant feeling of being trapped within a conversational lull suits her characters so well, who are themselves trapped within the liminal periods between tranformations - that period of change that’s hardest to articulate. there’s so much repressed (or simply yet-unknown) desires and impulses that simmer in those pauses. its so cool to read dialogue thats so concerned with the emotional power behind the absence of language! thought lots about kelly reichardt and specifically how both artists make the barrier obstructing human connection feel so palpable and how much they insist on trying to push through it anyways. only wished i couldve seen the actual performances… so much is lost when these plays get taken away from a durational medium!
August 21, 2021
annie baker i LOVE you!!! Highly recommend reading these plays if you get the chance, since she includes so many details, notes, and instructions in the stage directions that give the live performances a whole new meaning. Her plays are so thoughtful and empathetic, favorite was Circle Mirror Transformation and I may be giving this collection 5 stars just for it. Really obsessed with her work.
September 13, 2022
Tremendous. Annie Baker can create characters out of tiny actions and a handful of words who seem more alive than real people. Every entry into these plays (an object, something seemingly random said, the sets themselves) turn into deeper meanings as the story progresses. These plays are beautiful and, though brief, get at what it is to be human in these modern times.
January 8, 2023
These plays are good!
April 9, 2018
These are all great. There isn't great big typical dramah, but it's soft dramah. It gave me a chance to breathe and see what she was doing. Her characters leap off the page.
The Aliens - I would have to see this to see if the music stuff worked. But I think it got to the heart of what it's like to be 20 and 30 something.
Circle Mirror Transformation - feels a little forced, but ends up working out okay in the end. Does she ever get the check from the girls ma?
Nocturama - I liked it - I liked the juxtaposition of images and her character of loquacious borderline autistic male, who just doesn't know any better. A sort of Squid and the Whale character.
Body Awareness - my favourite by far - a criticism of feminism and just great characters and well crafted situations that both felt organic and made me think of whyte woman feminism. I loved the last moment the best. Also, side note, I was reading it outside and when I read about the character expositing himself, my mouth actually dropped and I CAUGHT A FLY IN MY MOUTH. Luckily, it got out unscathed.
The Aliens - I would have to see this to see if the music stuff worked. But I think it got to the heart of what it's like to be 20 and 30 something.
Circle Mirror Transformation - feels a little forced, but ends up working out okay in the end. Does she ever get the check from the girls ma?
Nocturama - I liked it - I liked the juxtaposition of images and her character of loquacious borderline autistic male, who just doesn't know any better. A sort of Squid and the Whale character.
Body Awareness - my favourite by far - a criticism of feminism and just great characters and well crafted situations that both felt organic and made me think of whyte woman feminism. I loved the last moment the best. Also, side note, I was reading it outside and when I read about the character expositing himself, my mouth actually dropped and I CAUGHT A FLY IN MY MOUTH. Luckily, it got out unscathed.
August 6, 2015
There are very few writers who know how to write how people actually converse and still manage to convey so much of what is underneath. Annie Baker somehow knows how to reveal a history without it seeming like exposition. She creates deeply flawed characters that you still very much understand and (surprisingly) mostly like. She is an expert at lost souls finding each other.
This collection includes four plays that all take place in Vermont but are otherwise not connected by story or character. Some of these are stronger than others as with any collection but the overall experience of reading them was quite exciting.
This collection includes four plays that all take place in Vermont but are otherwise not connected by story or character. Some of these are stronger than others as with any collection but the overall experience of reading them was quite exciting.
October 19, 2012
Encountering a play by reading the script is a little like encountering a meal by reading the recipe: you're reading the instructions for a thing rather than taking in the thing itself. And yet in both cases great quality can shine through. These plays display both subtlety and drama, and find strange, new, important truths in our everyday encounters. They're also quite moving. These are great plays---so great that you can tell just from the recipe how delicious they're going to be.
October 22, 2013
Overall, a great collection. Nocturama does not hit as hard as the other three plays, but it's still a great exploration of character. The Aliens is my favorite. I had the pleasure of seeing it at Rattlestick when it premiered. I also assistant directed Circle Mirror Transformation at Seattle Rep. Working on this play, I realized how brilliantly crafted it is. Annie Baker is a kick-butt playwright.
December 15, 2015
The four stars are an average given that I loved three of the four plays.
Circle Mirror Transformation (which I've read before and loved)
Nocturama
Body Awareness
The fourth- The Aliens- despite being an interesting experiment in using silence and pauses in between Baker's naturalistic, minimal dialogue, didn't engage me the way the others (or for that matter, her wonderful play "The Flick") did.
Circle Mirror Transformation (which I've read before and loved)
Nocturama
Body Awareness
The fourth- The Aliens- despite being an interesting experiment in using silence and pauses in between Baker's naturalistic, minimal dialogue, didn't engage me the way the others (or for that matter, her wonderful play "The Flick") did.
September 29, 2019
All four of these plays accomplish so much depth with such casual humanity, and such precise but honest character moments, it's amazing that someone wrote them and didn't just record them secretly. Not showy, barely plotted, but moving and sad and ever so slightly hopeful.
June 12, 2024
2 stars for The Aliens (did next to nothing for me), 3.5 for Nocturama (very good but not sure it built to anything?) and Body Awareness (very funny!), strong 5 stars for my new favorite Annie play Circle Mirror Transformation. :,)
I keep trying to explain the appeal of her plays to friends and it’s hard to describe them anyway besides intimate? Three or four people at transitional stages of their lives stuck in a room together struggling to make sense of their own feelings and each other’s feelings, and it’s always very mundane but emotionally intense, like you’re bearing witness to these people’s most private moments. Wish I could see these live so bad!!!
I keep trying to explain the appeal of her plays to friends and it’s hard to describe them anyway besides intimate? Three or four people at transitional stages of their lives stuck in a room together struggling to make sense of their own feelings and each other’s feelings, and it’s always very mundane but emotionally intense, like you’re bearing witness to these people’s most private moments. Wish I could see these live so bad!!!
November 16, 2025
I've been an admirer of Annie Baker for a long time--this was the first time I've returned to her early plays since first reading her in college. The Aliens and Circle Mirror Transformation are genius--Nocturama and Body Awareness less so, but still good. Body Awareness was her first play, and I think compared to later work like The Flick, John, and The Antipodes, it definitely feels like her most juvenile / college-y play. Really not a fan of the weird ableist subplot in that one
April 22, 2025
My ranking of the plays:
The Aliens
Nocturama
Body Awareness
Circle Mirror Transformation
All were wonderful though. Annie Baker has such a clear voice and her plays never cease to intrigue and amaze me. I hope I get the opportunity to perform in a play of hers one day.
The Aliens
Nocturama
Body Awareness
Circle Mirror Transformation
All were wonderful though. Annie Baker has such a clear voice and her plays never cease to intrigue and amaze me. I hope I get the opportunity to perform in a play of hers one day.
March 23, 2024
annie baker means everything to me
Read
September 26, 2024annie baker is! a national treasure
December 4, 2024
Felt like I read this in like 2 seconds. Great characters, fantastic dialogue
September 20, 2017
Annie Baker makes theater for the people that won’t show up for her plays. Human drama mixed with the otherworldly. People overwhelmed by their bodies, their family history, and find themselves unable to kickstart out of their mundanity. Tightly constructed plots, dressed in electric language, spoken by characters that are messy, complicated and alive. Like Chekhov her stories that are alive, mixed up, unresolved, uncomfortable and illuminating. People do go see her plays, and her work has garnered praise, a Pulitizer “The Flick”, and her name reminds synonymous with the protean New York cool.
A profligate son Skaggs returns home after college, without a girlfriend, drum set or much ambition in the biting drama “Nocturama”. Oversharing, under stimulated, and copious amounts of marijuana, Skaggs is the fly in the ointment in his mother’s search for a peaceful existence. The mother/son dynamic is tested with broken promises, hopes of spiritual transcendence, and generational differences in sexual expression. There is a rawness to the story that I absolutely love. Skaggs mouth runs with disrespect and cruelty, but the soft naivety is in every breath too. Probably the longest play in the bunch, but definitely a solid read, with a number of strange sides to the story.
Many of Annie Baker’s characters struggle with the image in the mirror and in “Body Awareness”, she plays with the excitement and shame of human anatomy. A lesbian couple, sharing a love of teaching and progressive values, take part in a week of body awareness at their school. Their son, from Joyce’s first marriage, is struggling with sexually appropriate boundaries, and expressing himself in a mature way. Eye-appropriate, moral questions find new meaning, as Baker pushes characters into making choices about what they want, and what they think they should want.
The skies darken on 3 seemingly aimless young men in the back of a coffee shop in her visually stunning “Aliens”. The failures of young adulthood that went awry is told in tales of a glorious rock band, and of the teachers who held them back. Evan, still in high school, is taking up the mantle of adulthood having found a job, possibly a love interest and friendship. His opinions seem unformed, still taking the measure of the world, and what he can contribute to it. As both a sci-fi thriller, and a drama on friendship, it succeeds.
Of the bunch, “Circle Mirror Transformation” is my favorite. At a local community center, a class works to find their inner self with theater games, and self-expression exercises. Revealing who they are in class, and the realities of the people they are outside of class. With humor, sensitivity, a debilitating sadness, a group does the hard work of confronting themselves, and take possible steps toward a new reality.
Really wish this collection, included “John”, my absolutely favorite of Baker’s. It’s well worth reading, even if it’s not part of this particular collection. “The Flick” is also worth a few hours too.
A profligate son Skaggs returns home after college, without a girlfriend, drum set or much ambition in the biting drama “Nocturama”. Oversharing, under stimulated, and copious amounts of marijuana, Skaggs is the fly in the ointment in his mother’s search for a peaceful existence. The mother/son dynamic is tested with broken promises, hopes of spiritual transcendence, and generational differences in sexual expression. There is a rawness to the story that I absolutely love. Skaggs mouth runs with disrespect and cruelty, but the soft naivety is in every breath too. Probably the longest play in the bunch, but definitely a solid read, with a number of strange sides to the story.
Many of Annie Baker’s characters struggle with the image in the mirror and in “Body Awareness”, she plays with the excitement and shame of human anatomy. A lesbian couple, sharing a love of teaching and progressive values, take part in a week of body awareness at their school. Their son, from Joyce’s first marriage, is struggling with sexually appropriate boundaries, and expressing himself in a mature way. Eye-appropriate, moral questions find new meaning, as Baker pushes characters into making choices about what they want, and what they think they should want.
The skies darken on 3 seemingly aimless young men in the back of a coffee shop in her visually stunning “Aliens”. The failures of young adulthood that went awry is told in tales of a glorious rock band, and of the teachers who held them back. Evan, still in high school, is taking up the mantle of adulthood having found a job, possibly a love interest and friendship. His opinions seem unformed, still taking the measure of the world, and what he can contribute to it. As both a sci-fi thriller, and a drama on friendship, it succeeds.
Of the bunch, “Circle Mirror Transformation” is my favorite. At a local community center, a class works to find their inner self with theater games, and self-expression exercises. Revealing who they are in class, and the realities of the people they are outside of class. With humor, sensitivity, a debilitating sadness, a group does the hard work of confronting themselves, and take possible steps toward a new reality.
Really wish this collection, included “John”, my absolutely favorite of Baker’s. It’s well worth reading, even if it’s not part of this particular collection. “The Flick” is also worth a few hours too.
July 25, 2012
Herewith, a few impressions gleaned from episodic bouts of reading in this edition. A more careful study might lead me to different opinions. As of 6/23/12 I've read only two of the four plays.
The Aliens is broadly about three rather lost and lonely young men (ages 17 to 31) who hang out behind a coffee shop and tentatively reach out to one another. Circle Mirror Transformation is about five rather lost and lonely people (ages 16 to 60) who meet each week in an acting class and tentatively reach out to one another. That's a highly reductive description--a good deal more could be said about each of those plays--but the similarity gets at something that may be important.
At the moment I suspect an indirect Tennessee Williams influence in the sense one gets of damaged characters among Baker's people. Admittedly, the teenagers are more unformed and hopeful than genuinely wounded, but the evidence of their elders doesn't encourage optimism for their future. This approach to characters can become limiting. Even Williams grew tiresome as he continued to mine his particular vein of woundedness. And--to come right out with what some regard as an iconoclastic view--drama can do a lot more than what the classic American exemplars, namely O'Neill, Miller, and Williams, accomplished. So one hopes to find other directions in Baker's other work.
It's encouraging that her most recent creation as of mid-2012, not included in this volume, is a "new version" (as Soho Rep is billing it) of one of Chekhov's great plays, Uncle Vanya.
* * * * *
Baker's dialogue is, like, really cool, you know? And I don't mean that as sarcasm; it's an example of how one of her characters might praise her linguistic skill. They say things like "um" and "yeah" and "like" and "cool," and use that peculiar habit known as upspeak, in countless ways. (Upspeak is phrasing a statement as though it were a question? So it doesn't sound too assertive?) As photo-realist painting duplicates the verisimilitude of the camera, so Baker's dialogue duplicates what a tape recorder might capture of contemporary conversational habits. But a camera is blind, and a tape recorder is deaf, without a skilled user guiding it; likewise, photo-realist painting doesn't necessarily show us anything worth attending to, nor does this kind of realistic dialogue, unless it has some end beyond itself. In Baker's writing it does. This particular style of talking is how her characters do what all stage characters must, which is reveal more than they say.
The Aliens is broadly about three rather lost and lonely young men (ages 17 to 31) who hang out behind a coffee shop and tentatively reach out to one another. Circle Mirror Transformation is about five rather lost and lonely people (ages 16 to 60) who meet each week in an acting class and tentatively reach out to one another. That's a highly reductive description--a good deal more could be said about each of those plays--but the similarity gets at something that may be important.
At the moment I suspect an indirect Tennessee Williams influence in the sense one gets of damaged characters among Baker's people. Admittedly, the teenagers are more unformed and hopeful than genuinely wounded, but the evidence of their elders doesn't encourage optimism for their future. This approach to characters can become limiting. Even Williams grew tiresome as he continued to mine his particular vein of woundedness. And--to come right out with what some regard as an iconoclastic view--drama can do a lot more than what the classic American exemplars, namely O'Neill, Miller, and Williams, accomplished. So one hopes to find other directions in Baker's other work.
It's encouraging that her most recent creation as of mid-2012, not included in this volume, is a "new version" (as Soho Rep is billing it) of one of Chekhov's great plays, Uncle Vanya.
* * * * *
Baker's dialogue is, like, really cool, you know? And I don't mean that as sarcasm; it's an example of how one of her characters might praise her linguistic skill. They say things like "um" and "yeah" and "like" and "cool," and use that peculiar habit known as upspeak, in countless ways. (Upspeak is phrasing a statement as though it were a question? So it doesn't sound too assertive?) As photo-realist painting duplicates the verisimilitude of the camera, so Baker's dialogue duplicates what a tape recorder might capture of contemporary conversational habits. But a camera is blind, and a tape recorder is deaf, without a skilled user guiding it; likewise, photo-realist painting doesn't necessarily show us anything worth attending to, nor does this kind of realistic dialogue, unless it has some end beyond itself. In Baker's writing it does. This particular style of talking is how her characters do what all stage characters must, which is reveal more than they say.
June 3, 2023
2017 Reading
Set in the fictional Shirley, Vermont, Annie Baker's The Vermont Plays is a profound and engaging dive into her oeuvre. Pregnant with long pauses and seemingly inconsequential mundanity, each play in this collection demonstrates what Baker does best and why she is such an affecting dramatist.
The Aliens
Baker clarifies in the stage notes for The Aliens, "At least a third--if not half--of this play is silence" (3). This performative declaration sharply limits the readability of this play. Long pauses are not new for Baker; The Flick, for example, effectively uses long pauses to accentuate a series of interesting dramatic choices Baker makes throughout the play. With The Aliens, however, feature becomes form, regrettably to the play's detriment.
But with that said, The Aliens is a rambling, lyrically nomadic play of high order. It's not necessarily Baker's best, but it introduces and develops several aesthetic choices that Baker masters in later plays.
Circle Mirror Transformation
Circle Mirror Transformation is easily the best play of this set. Baker doesn't hesitate to gesture toward the sentimental (an ethos too often received with a derisive scoff), and by having the confidence to do so, the end of the play is a genuinely amazing experience.
Nocturama
Less thematically resonate than many of Baker's other plays, Nocturama nevertheless illustrates the significance of small moments and domestic oddities. Unlike The Aliens and Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama is a play about characters in domestic spaces and the complex negotiations required to inhabit those spaces.
Unlike The Flick or John, the conflicts in Nocturama are ephemeral or at least that's what the characters themselves want everyone (themselves included) to think. This is one of the play's strengths.
Body Awareness
I sincerely thought I would enjoy Body Awareness the most, but it's a little too didactic for my taste. Baker's skills are visible, but Body Awareness is more of a charming failure than a triumphant success.
***
2023 Reading
I reread Circle Mirror Transformation, and it remains my favorite Annie Baker play. For Baker, like many psychoanalytically-inclined thinkers, truth resides in fiction. That is to say, to discover the truth, we must navigate through fiction. In short, fiction creates the conditions for truth to emerge.
Set in the fictional Shirley, Vermont, Annie Baker's The Vermont Plays is a profound and engaging dive into her oeuvre. Pregnant with long pauses and seemingly inconsequential mundanity, each play in this collection demonstrates what Baker does best and why she is such an affecting dramatist.
The Aliens
Baker clarifies in the stage notes for The Aliens, "At least a third--if not half--of this play is silence" (3). This performative declaration sharply limits the readability of this play. Long pauses are not new for Baker; The Flick, for example, effectively uses long pauses to accentuate a series of interesting dramatic choices Baker makes throughout the play. With The Aliens, however, feature becomes form, regrettably to the play's detriment.
But with that said, The Aliens is a rambling, lyrically nomadic play of high order. It's not necessarily Baker's best, but it introduces and develops several aesthetic choices that Baker masters in later plays.
Circle Mirror Transformation
Circle Mirror Transformation is easily the best play of this set. Baker doesn't hesitate to gesture toward the sentimental (an ethos too often received with a derisive scoff), and by having the confidence to do so, the end of the play is a genuinely amazing experience.
Nocturama
Less thematically resonate than many of Baker's other plays, Nocturama nevertheless illustrates the significance of small moments and domestic oddities. Unlike The Aliens and Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama is a play about characters in domestic spaces and the complex negotiations required to inhabit those spaces.
Unlike The Flick or John, the conflicts in Nocturama are ephemeral or at least that's what the characters themselves want everyone (themselves included) to think. This is one of the play's strengths.
Body Awareness
I sincerely thought I would enjoy Body Awareness the most, but it's a little too didactic for my taste. Baker's skills are visible, but Body Awareness is more of a charming failure than a triumphant success.
***
2023 Reading
I reread Circle Mirror Transformation, and it remains my favorite Annie Baker play. For Baker, like many psychoanalytically-inclined thinkers, truth resides in fiction. That is to say, to discover the truth, we must navigate through fiction. In short, fiction creates the conditions for truth to emerge.
August 6, 2019
This is another actor in the play of me trying to catch up on the last 10 years of live theater. I read THE ALIENS earlier in the summer, but I decided to go ahead and read the rest of this collection because none of the other plays I've planned on reading have shown up on my doorstep, yet. Annie Baker was among the Stephen Simon's and Lucas Hnath's that kept showing up in the "Best Of" lists I found, so I thought I should just go ahead and finish this collection. I will admit she is masterful at dialogue and sneaking in exposition. She also has very established characters that don't need exposition. However...the producer in me is really not in the business of putting plays on the stage that communicate so much depression, existentialism, and lack of identity. I like that she champions the outsider of the world, the homebodies, people on the spectrum, people with no ambition, etc., but...I might be too much of a theater person who wants less of first-world problems on the stage... I can admit, because I have done the research, that there are not a lot of plays that deal with people with disabilities in such a real way, and for that she should be commended, but...again...it's depressing... So, I'm conflicted, which means...she's done her job... I had a feeling and I'm still having feelings... I'm going to sit with this for awhile, to see if I change my mind. I still have to read her play "John", which was a on a "Best Of" list, so...the verdict's still out on my true feelings...
All that aside, there are some good scenes in CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION and NOCTURMA for college-aged students. There are some great scenes in BODY AWARENESS, but it isn't for "traditionally aged" students. But...for open acting classes, the scenes throughout this collection can teach a student about listening, connection, and clarity of character.
All that aside, there are some good scenes in CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION and NOCTURMA for college-aged students. There are some great scenes in BODY AWARENESS, but it isn't for "traditionally aged" students. But...for open acting classes, the scenes throughout this collection can teach a student about listening, connection, and clarity of character.
October 20, 2021
Very good and varied collection. Incredibly realistic. Annie Baker captures the way people speak, both what they say and avoid saying, very accurately. You could possibly accuse these plays of being very slow, but I think minimalistic would be more accurate. Like Simon Stephens, she often avoids the dramatic moments, but these quiet moments surrounding them are filled with subtext.
The Aliens was an interesting play about some slackers, one of which has a drug problem, and a boy they meet and become friends with.
Circle, Mirror... Is completely set in an acting class and manages to capture some of the everyday drama of the acting classes social dynamics. The actors, like many artists, are forced to be vulnerable and share their personal experiences for dramatic content.
Nocturama was my favourite piece. A very realistic depiction of depression, warts and all. The protagonist is self-centred and unproductive after a few negative events within a short period of time. I would have loved to see this live.
Body Awareness was my least favourite. Despite being an interesting depiction of the problems regarding Aspergers, it felt a little convuluted. It focused on body image and objectification and tried to expand the idea of mind to include the body too. I think it was trying to take a neutral stance on the issue, displaying both sides, but along with the other mental health stuff it felt like this was perhaps the play where Annie Baker was least clear on what she wanted to say. There's an interesting moment at the end where we discover that the boy with quite extreme Aspergers flashes a teenager, bringing about some mirky moral issues, but the subject is no sooner raised then dropped.
The Aliens was an interesting play about some slackers, one of which has a drug problem, and a boy they meet and become friends with.
Circle, Mirror... Is completely set in an acting class and manages to capture some of the everyday drama of the acting classes social dynamics. The actors, like many artists, are forced to be vulnerable and share their personal experiences for dramatic content.
Nocturama was my favourite piece. A very realistic depiction of depression, warts and all. The protagonist is self-centred and unproductive after a few negative events within a short period of time. I would have loved to see this live.
Body Awareness was my least favourite. Despite being an interesting depiction of the problems regarding Aspergers, it felt a little convuluted. It focused on body image and objectification and tried to expand the idea of mind to include the body too. I think it was trying to take a neutral stance on the issue, displaying both sides, but along with the other mental health stuff it felt like this was perhaps the play where Annie Baker was least clear on what she wanted to say. There's an interesting moment at the end where we discover that the boy with quite extreme Aspergers flashes a teenager, bringing about some mirky moral issues, but the subject is no sooner raised then dropped.
Read
November 25, 2024Devoured these--because they're quick as plays, but also for the total liveliness they bring. Cool to see her focuses deepen and expand from the first play to the last here. "Circle Mirror Transformation" was probably my favorite as a perfect distillation of her style. But "Body Awareness" was challenging and thought-provoking in a new way too. "Nocturama" was a bit of a dud, at least for me. It left the sympatheticness up to the actors to convey, which seems unfair. Baker seems to fit into a "hypernaturalism" or whatever moment really well--along with lit compatriots Lydia Davis, Ben Lerner, Tao Lin, choose your poet of the mundane, whoever--but, maybe just as a fact of being drama, takes it away from some of the single-person navel-gazing to stories of communities of ordinary lives.
January 4, 2022
Five stars is a cumulative effect. I think you'd be hard pressed to find another collection this coherent and high quality. I pitched Circle Mirror Transformation when I was on a play selection committee, which was vetoed by a dude who thought it "too boring". *sigh* Not every play need sword fights of onstage deaths, you know? Frankly, I can't think of a single Baker play that I haven't liked.
September 21, 2018
The Aliens - 3.5
Circle Mirror Transformation - 4.5
Nocturama - 5 (Best I've read in 2018 tag applies here)
Body Awareness - 4
Annie Baker man..... she goooooood. Someone called her a minimalist modern Chekhov, and I would have to agree. And I love me some Chekhov in any form.
Circle Mirror Transformation - 4.5
Nocturama - 5 (Best I've read in 2018 tag applies here)
Body Awareness - 4
Annie Baker man..... she goooooood. Someone called her a minimalist modern Chekhov, and I would have to agree. And I love me some Chekhov in any form.
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