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Thursday, April 28, 2005
At Horizon: ‘Syringa Tree’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “The Syringa Tree.�
Pamela Gien’s ”The Syringa Tree” employs a single actor to tell the story of a wealthy white family living in a South Africa divided by apartheid. Inside a gated residence perfumed with frangipani, the Grace household is about to be turned upside down by violence and the collapse of a pernicious social system.
Gien’s play, which won a cache of awards including the Obie when it appeared off-Broadway in 2000, is getting a sensational workout now at Horizon Theatre, starring the quicksilver Carolyn Cook in no fewer than 21 roles. From Johannesburg aristocrats to Soweto townspeople, from Catholics to Jews and Zulus to Xhosas, Cook inhabits them all.
Centering on 6-year-old Elizabeth Grace, ”The Syringa Tree” depicts the complex relationships between the girl’s sprawling assemblage of kinfolk, neighbors, servants and servants’ families. It’s safe to say that Lizzie is as well acquainted with her nanny Salamina, and Salamina’s toddler, as she is with her own mother and baby brother.
As director Lisa Adler points out in her program notes, this “strange mix of intimacy and distanceâ€? is a startling reflection of the Southern middle class during the Jim Crow era. Beyond that, you can’t help being jarred by such terms as ”big house” and ”pickaninny” â€â€? and the rhythmic work songs of the South African natives.
What the play does so well is capture both the inner politics of a house and the smoldering turbulence outside its windows. Here, designer Wm. Moore’s simple wall-like set, painted in vivid pastels, recalls both a cloistered garden and the endless blue skies of this magnificent corner of the Southern Hemisphere.
Reposing on her bed (a rectangle of pure light), Lizzie can’t help but sense that the whole world seems curiously nervous. Eventually, she will grow up to despise � and abandon � her beloved country.
For every character in this demanding show, Cook has found a specific voice and physical vocabulary. Lizzie is a hyperactive young girl who never seems to stop moving: Even her daydreams are about ballet. Her mother, Eugenie, is forever locked in an expression of stillness and formality, with her right index finger pressed into her temple. In the wide arc of her arms, Salamina embraces bittersweet joy, even heartbreak.
A couple of quibbles: As this one-act stretches on for one hour, 45 minutes and some three climaxes, you begin to wish that Gien’s milieu were a little more focused. And Cook’s movement sometimes feels overly choreographed: You want her to find the center of each character and get on with the story.
Still, Cook displays a remarkable nimbleness of craft � tirelessly switching masks, and languages, to hold the audience for an entire evening.
With a poet’s eye for detail and a memoirist’s connection to the material, Gien captures a place of ineffable beauty on the cusp of chaos. Ultimately, ”The Syringa Tree” is about man’s capacity to love, and forgive.
THE VERDICT: A South Africa you’ve never seen.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays. 8:30 p.m. Saturdays. (Also 3 p.m. April 30.) 5 p.m. Sundays. Through May 15. $20-$25. Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-584-7450, www.horizontheatre.com.
