Mendenhall, Talbott and Winter in Circle Mirror Transformation.

The musical A Chorus Line has a song, “Nothing,” in which the character Morales shares her past struggles in theater class. She was asked to be a table, feel the motion of bobsledding down a hill, pretend she’s an ice cream cone. Morales really tries, but she can’t quite get past the eye-roll stage.

It’s easy to find yourself in the same predicament in the earlier moments of Circle Mirror Transformation, Studio Theatre‘s season opener, set entirely within the walls of a Vermont-based acting class attended by mostly less-than-seasoned performers. This is a class (much to Morales-like character Lauren’s dismay) where they don’t so much practice scenes or put on a show, but play theater games. Some games are improvisational. Others work on skills like instinct (one exercise has them laying down in a circle, trying to count to ten alternately without two people offering a number up at the same time). A few seem designed to bring back repressed memories.