“I Am a Tree” Theatre at St. Clement’s Reviewed by David Roberts Theatre Reviews Limited 06 June 2012
In 1926 Hart Crane wrote “Garden Abstract,” a kind of re-telling of one of the creation myths in the Old Testament. In Crane’s re-telling, the Eve-like “she” bypasses temptation, punishment, and expulsion from the Garden by “dreaming herself the tree.” She becomes the tree. She avoids any and all male contact and judgment.
Here is the poem in its entirety.
The apple on its bough is her desire,— Shining suspension, mimic of the sun. The bough has caught her breath up, and her voice, Dumbly articulate in the slant and rise Of branch on branch above her, blurs her eyes. She is prisoner of the tree and its green fingers.
And so she comes to dream herself the tree, The wind possessing her, weaving her young veins, Holding her to the sky and its quick blue, Drowning the fever of her hands in sunlight. She has no memory, nor fear, nor hope Beyond the grass and shadows at her feet.
The subject of Hart Crane’s poem is not unlike the protagonist in “I Am a Tree,” written and performed by Dulcy Rogers at Theatre at St. Clement’s in Manhattan through Saturday June 30. Both are haunted by memory, both motivated by fear, both bereft of hope. And both -- the subject of the poem and Dulcy Rogers’ Claire – ultimately free themselves of debilitating memories, transcend the grip of fear, and exchange hope for reality. And both “dream themselves” trees.
Claire’s quest is to know something of her mother who was torn from her by her stolid scientist father when she was six. Claire’s memories of her mother include a possibly bi-polar parent whose “hysteria” caused Claire’s father to institutionalize her to prevent her from harming Claire. Now pregnant and experiencing her own brand of instability, Claire is fearful her child will inherit mental illness and she decides to reach out to her three aunts to discover what happened to her mother and why she was “put away.”
Rogers’ one-woman show follows Claire’s quest as she meets (and portrays) her mother’s three sisters: Aurelia, Lillian, and Lou. Each of these relatives reveals something of her mother to Claire but Claire completes her visitations without the information she so desperately seeks. She only knows her mother through the experiences of others.
It is only when she takes Aurelia’s advice (the aunt who “claims to be a fir tree) and visits her mother that she no longer claims fear as motivation. When Claire meets her mother, she experiences the kind of release that she has sought all her life. She accepts the “fun” Lillian urges her to enjoy.
But why, if she was not prevented by her father from visiting her mother, did it take Claire almost thirty years to visit her mother if she was so concerned about her mental status? Moreover, when she finally arrives at her mother’s asylum door and sees a caring letter from her father to her mother, does she not achieve the kind of forgiveness of him that would truly result in a life free from fear and guilt?
Ms. Rogers seems not to need to address these important questions in her otherwise engaging solo performance. Although Claire claims to leave her mother’s presence “healed” and no longer has to worry about inheriting her mother’s diagnosis of “hysteria,” she fails to address her father’s concern for her mother, concern all three of her aunts denied existed.
Claire, though she stretches her arms to the side in Aurelia’s tree pose, is still a captive of fear. She has not – at least by the time the audience leaves St. Clements’s – confronted her fear of her father’s authoritarian persona. Unlike Hart Crane’s Eve-like protagonist, Claire has not yet re-created her universe to be free from what she remembers her father to be.
“I Am a Tree” is clearly a work in progress. Dulcy Rogers has continued to revisit and refine her solo piece. Perhaps it is time to return to her original intent to perform the piece with more than one actor. This critic cannot imagine an audition in New York City would not discover an Aurelia, a Lillian, and a Lou that would bring Claire’s troubled world to an even more stellar performance level.
This said, “I Am a Tree” is a performance treat and should be seen before it closes on June 30.
I AM A TREE
Written and performed by Dulcy Rogers and directed by Allan Miller. Produced by United Pies, Inc, in association with The Elephant Theatre (Los Angeles). I AM A TREE began performances on Friday, May 25 for a limited engagement through Saturday, June 30. The performance schedule is Thursday - Saturday at 8:00 p.m.; and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Performances are at Theatre at St. Clement’s (423 West 46th St., between 9th and 10th Avenues). Tickets are $40. To purchase tickets, call OvationTix at 212-352-3101 or visit www.theatermania.com.
Permalink | Posted by David Roberts on Saturday, June 9, 2012
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