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The Syringa Tree |
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Author: Pamela Gien
Reviewer: Carolyn Albert for Theatre Reviews Limited |
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Actress PAMELA GIEN waves her long, slender arms often throughout her one-person show about growing up in South Africa under the terrors of Apartheid. As she extends her arms, she becomes the syringa tree of the play's title, a species native to South Africa, that grows very tall and whose leafy boughs shade and protect those who live under it.
Gien's fascinating new drama opened September 14, 2000, for a limited run, but has drawn such rapt and enthusiastic audiences, it is currently in open run at Playhouse 91. In this one-person play, she transforms herself into each speaker: her voice deepens, her accent changes from English to Afrikaans, to Zulu as she becomes their voices. Her body takes on the posture of the servant, the servant's three-year-old daughter (and later on, that same daughter who becomes a martyr to the revolutionary violence at age 14), Elizabeth's patrician mother whose family have lived in South Africa for generations, her immigrant Jewish father - a respected medical doctor, and two dozen more participants in the drama.
  
Ms. Gien is an actress with extensive credits, as her playbill bio attests. She was born in Johannesburg and, presumably, deeply affected by her experiences there. The play she has written may have some autobiographical elements - but that's irrelevant to the appreciation of it. "The Syringa Tree" is a play that demands active attention to discern who is speaking in order to follow the narrative.
The essential tale is narrated by Elizabeth, a little girl who is six years old in 1963 in Johannesburg, South Africa at the start of Apartheid. Elizabeth witnesses the horrors of Apartheid that affect both her white family and a beloved black servant's family. The device of a precocious child who is able to report events without judgement is dramatically gripping. This narrative choice was similarly effective in Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" as a bright little girl similarly witnesses events in segregated Mississippi.
Elizabeth's childhood is marked by incidents of terror and violence from both sides of the color conflict. White-induced fear comes from policemen who scour the countryside looking for black people without papers. These people must be sent back to their townships within South Africa. Even their neighbors are threats and Elizabeth learns to divulge nothing, especially to a bigoted visiting Afrikaaner neighbor who is also the minister of a local church.
When Salomina, Elizabeth's nanny, gives birth to her own daughter, Moliseng, she calls for Elizabeth to witness the baby's birth, strengthening the bond between the children. Salomina has sworn Elizabeth to secrecy about her child's existence because Moliseng has no papers and thus is illegal. She would be sent back to live with Salomina's mother who is too old and sick to look after her.
The dramatic core of the play shares the terror and grief over a lost child. Salomina had brought little Moliseng back to her township for a visit. For some unexplained reason, she left the child with her homeland family. The child became ill and was brought to a hospital, but when Salomina's brother went to see his niece, he was told that she wasn't there. Desperate attempts to find her by Elizabeth's mother (a dangerous trip in which Elizabeth petulantly insists on accompanying her mother) and then by her father finally turn up the child who had been transferred to another hospital without any records being kept.
Black violence devastates the family when a Rhodesian freedom fighter crosses into South Africa to the farm where Elizabeth's maternal grandparents live and brutally stabs Grandpa George to death. This event so traumatizes Salomina with shame that she leaves the family in the middle of the night. Years later they learn that she has been working for another family not far away. We are left to conclude that everyone is so secretive, families don't know much about their neighbors.
The real and symbolic importance of the syringa tree is integrated into the production's story and setting. Salomina had told Elizabeth that when people hide, they climb high into that protective syringa tree where they become invisible. This aura of security will determine choices made by the adult Elizabeth who concludes the tale. The setting designed by KENNETH FOY for the teller of these events is a bare stage with only a swing - a plank suspended by long ropes - presumably from that tree. The backdrop is textured tan grass paper.
Ms Gien wears a slender brown shift (designed by WILLIAM IVEY LONG) with only the tiniest hint of color in the blue cap sleeves. It's as if she has become one with the tree. Effective lighting by JASON KANTROWITZ changes tell of seasons and times of day. The production was sensitively directed by LARRY MOSS who participated in developing this property with Ms. Gien.
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Produced by Matt Salinger.
Theater: Playhouse 91 located at 316 East 91 Street (1-2 Aves.) One flight up; no elevator access.
Schedule: Tuesday - Saturday at 8, Saturday at 2, Sunday at 3. The play runs for 90 minutes without intermission.
Tickets: $47.50 through Ticket Master: (212) 307-4100.
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