After the September 11th attack, many shows discontinued their runs, only to open again weeks later. One of these, Pamela Gien's "The Syringa Tree" has returned after a month off, roaring back at the end with new actress Kate Blumberg in the lead. Not having seen Gein's own performance of her semi-autobiographical play, I'm not in a position to make comparisons, but her replacement gives a marvelous performance and I don't know how the original could have been better.
For those unfamiliar, as I was, with this 2001 Drama Desk Award Winning solo show, it is woven together from the childhood experiences of its author, who as a young girl lived in South Africa at the height of its racial discord and tension. The play is narrated by a child, here named Elizabeth, who is watching the interplay of black and white South African cultures as they manifest themselves in her own home, indeed, in her own backyard. In that backyard there grows, symbolically, a large syringa tree.
Now, I wondered, as I prepared for this review, why this particular kind of tree, the syringa, had been chosen by the author as the central image of the play. Syringas, as a family, are great purple-flowering trees related to the lilac. Elizabeth's tree, in memory, is perpetually adorned with clusters of blossoms. It is certainly a beautiful, romantic image. I had assumed that, this being semi-autobiographical work, the author had seen or known or loved a particular syringa tree as a child and that it was her own personal memories that gave it meaning. If so, it still works for us as a symbol of a particular place and time in young Elizabeth's life. But this is a particularly apt and versatile symbolic center to the play, intentional or no. For it's not an indigenous African tree, but Japanese. The syringa, an alien plant growing in a foreign soil, is a powerful symbol of Apartheid in South Africa. Syringas, like the Jacarandas that turn the South African capital of Pretoria purple each October, are also fierce competitors for natural resources and contribute to the persistent water shortages that plague the country. I do not remember any such comparative language in the play, so it may not be the author's intent that we read these meanings into the tree, but that we can find so many layers is indicative of the general power and beauty of this work throughout.
There is a lot here. First of all, as a solo piece, Ms. Gien's creates a wonderful vehicle for an actress to give a virtuosic performance. Young Elizabeth and her extended family span generations from infant to ancient, and the performer must delineate between a dizzying array of heights, weights, genders, physicalities, accents, cultures and levels of sophistication. And Ms. Blumberg, stepping this difficult, role makes it undeniably her own, right down to the complex intonations and 'clicks' of South African language and song. (I have read that Ms. Gien is creating a screenplay based on her work. If so, it will be a film with a cast of thousands.)
The plot is complex, and I would be doing it a disservice to attempt any sort of overview, but I will say that it has novelty and some very funny moments. My one caveat to the entire production is that, however involving the storyline may be, there is a certain picture-postcard quality, skimming over brief images. One would grieve to see almost any of these vignettes cut, but there is vague unfocus to the last half hour as the author ventures further from the world she has worked so hard to create up to that point. She does, however, return to that world in time for a tear-jerking final curtain.
The simple physical production the play receives by Kenneth Foy is beautifully done, and the sound design by Tony Suraci heightens all the extraordinary, evolving layers of the playwright's world. All is brought together under the hand of director Larry Moss (who coached Hilary Swank for "Boys Don't Cry"). Director Moss keeps the evening on firm footing so that the actress can return to solid ground after each segment, and one can sense the comfort Ms. Blumberg feels to go out on a limb, both literally and metaphorically.
So, what else can we say but that if you didn't catch "Syringa" on its first time out of the gate, you should see it now. If you saw and admired Ms. Gien's original performance and would like to return, you can do so with the knowledge that the "Syringa Tree" of your past is still there, still growing, and just as beautiful as ever.