Annie Baker
Annie Baker (born April 1981) is an American playwright and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play ''The Flick.'' Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: ''Circle Mirror Tr ...
This play marked the Off-Broadway debut for Annie Baker. The play takes place at Shirley State College in Shirley, Vermont, which "evokes Amherst, Mass., where Ms. Baker... grew up, or Keene State College in New Hampshire, where her mother teaches now." Baker said, "My goal for the play is to not judge anyone, to get at that point where everyone is equally right and equally wrong, so the humor comes from that... I wanted to write a play about issues that wasn’t an 'issue play'."
The play was developed at the 2007 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, San Francisco, California, part of the Playwrights Foundation, and with the support of Atlantic Stage 2.
Plot synopsis
The play is set in the fictional small town of Shirley,
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
. Phyllis is a professor of psychology, and has organized a campus Body Awareness Week, whose topics range from a dance troupe of refugee
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
children to an eating disorder seminar. She lives with her partner Joyce, a high school social studies teacher, and Joyce's 21-year-old son Jared, from a prior marriage. Jared shows several symptoms of
Asperger's syndrome
Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's, is a former neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavio ...
, but he refuses to see a therapist for treatment. Their houseguest is a middle-aged photographer named Frank Bonitatibus, whose artistic photos of nude women offend Phyllis. Frank's presence exacerbates the already existing tension between the three of them, and when Joyce agrees to pose for one of Frank's pictures, this threatens her relationship with Phyllis. Meanwhile, Jared, a self-described autodidact who works at
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...
until he successfully tries to get fired because he hates his co-workers, asks Frank for advice on how to attract women.
Productions
''Body Awareness'' premiered Off-Broadway at the
Atlantic Theater Company
Atlantic Theater Company is an Off-Broadway non-profit theater, whose mission is to produce great plays "simply and truthfully utilizing an artistic ensemble." The company was founded in 1985 by David Mamet, William H. Macy, and 30 of their act ...
Brooklyn Rail
''The Brooklyn Rail'' is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The ''Rail'' is based out of Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, criti ...
'', June 2008 Directed by Karen Kohlhaas, the cast featured
JoBeth Williams
Margaret JoBeth Williams (born December 6, 1948) is an American actress and television director. Her directorial debut with the 1994 short film ''On Hope'' earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. In 2009 she began ...
(Joyce), Mary McCann (Phyllis), Jonathan Clem (Jared) and
Peter Friedman
Peter Friedman (born April 24, 1949) is an American stage, film, and television actor.
Life and career
Born in New York City, Friedman graduated from Hofstra University"Theater Review" ''The New York Times'', June 5, 2008
The
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
premiere took place from October 22, 2010 until November 20, 2010. It was produced by the SpeakEasy Stage Company and teamed with Company One (which put on ''Aliens'') and the
Huntington Theatre Company
The Huntington Theatre Company is a professional theatre located in Boston, Massachusetts and the recipient of the 2013 Regional Theatre Tony Award, under the direction of Managing Director Michael Maso. It is notable for its longstanding artist ...
(which put on ''
Circle Mirror Transformation
''Circle Mirror Transformation'' is a play by Annie Baker, centered on drama classes at a community center in Vermont. The play opened Off-Broadway in 2009 and received the Obie Award for Best New American Play.
Productions
''Circle Mirror Trans ...
'') as part of "The Shirley, VT Plays" Festival. It was directed by Paul Daigneault, with scenic design by Cristina Todesco, costume design by Bobby Frederick Tilley II, lighting design by Jeff Adelberg, original music and sound design by Nathan Leigh, and Victoria S. Coady as production stage manager. The SpeakEasy cast featured Paula Plum (Joyce), Adrianne Krstansky (Phyllis), Gregory Pember (Jared) and Richard Snee (Frank).Mendes, Chantal "Theater Review. ''Body Awareness'' a Lesson in Human Awareness" artsfuse.org, accessed August 13, 2015
The play was produced at the Aurora Theatre, Berkeley, California from December 2012 to March 2013, the first play of Baker's to be performed in the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', wrote: "...low-key, engaging new comedy by Annie Baker, a young playwright with a probing, understated voice, making her Off Broadway debut. 'Body Awareness,' which opened Wednesday night at the Atlantic Stage 2, is not exactly a dazzler. It announces its everyday quality almost proudly, as the characters mark the passage of time by writing the days of the week on a chalkboard at the back of the stage. But its quiet rewards steal up on you... Ms. Baker’s generosity of heart, embodied most touchingly in the character of Joyce, and in Ms. Williams’s sensitive performance, invites you to overlook the occasional misstep."
In reviewing the 2010 Boston production, the ''ArtsFuse'' reviewer wrote: "Annie Baker’s characters strip themselves down to their raw emotions: this is a play where characters don’t remove their clothes but the walls they’ve built to protect their inner selves. Essentially, the body awareness the script explores is not a matter of a healthy self image but a more nurturing awareness of the bodies and souls around us."
The reviewer of the 2012 California production for the ''sfgate'' called the play "hilarious" and noted the "...smart, provocative dialogue and even more pointed silences..."
In a review of a 2012 production at Theatre J, Washington, D.C. in ''The Washington Post'', Nelson Pressley wrote: "The result in the easygoing 'Body Awareness' is indeed very funny, skewering everything from the professor’s pretensions to the blunt sex talk Frank delivers to Jared... Baker’s dialogue is tart and personable, with just enough unexpected twists in the characterizations to keep you leaning forward... Baker is fast becoming one of the country’s more popular playwrights... and it may be because she has a lovely ability to comically mock types and trends while exposing the raw seams in her characters."
Awards and nominations
Nominations
*
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play is an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre among Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions. The award was initially introduced in 1955 as the Ver ...
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play is an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre among Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions. The awards were established in 19 ...