Inebriated brother and sister, David (Jess Barbagallo) and Sheila (Crystal Dickinson) are returning to their Connecticut home one dark night, when, picking the way through a park, they suddenly become rooted in place. As William Bendix might have said in the now nearly forgotten television sitcom The Life of Riley, “What a revoltin’ development this is!”
But how is this odd situation achieved? Playwright Agnes Borinsky’s stage direction – not realized by director Tina Satter or any handy special-effects specialist – goes like this: “Their toes root into the ground – break through their shoes and rapidly spread through soil.”
Failing that almost Hansel-Gretel-like happenstance being accomplished, the siblings are now planted in circular plots that can lower through the play’s 90-or-so intermissionless minutes – and do so. In short time the David-Shelia planting becomes a bummer for city official Jared (Sean Donovan), who’s charged with ascertaining a census count.
He’s initially puzzled by how to register David and Sheila but decides – shrewd thinker, he –that he’ll write them down as trees. This explains Borinsky’s title, though which tree species David and Shelia transmogrify into – oak, elm, chestnut, maple, birch, plane – is never stated.
And thereby Borinsky launches a piece that supposedly takes place “Now or Soon.” Perhaps that “Now or Soon” is intended to suggest that the audience is invited into a brand-new post-apocalyptic time. Or not. But what transpires in this now or soon is the gathering of nine other characters whom the sibs seem to know. Along with Jared, now cooking for trees David and Sheila, those included in the motley gang are gay and romantically bamboozled Norman (Ray Anthony Thomas), ebullient shul lady with refreshments Cheryl (Marcia DeBonis), and seven-year-old Ezra (Xander Fenyes), pretending to be a menacing bear cub.
The purpose served by the 10-person contingent appears to be jollying up David and Sheila, who are quickly threatened with the prospect of a mall being built around them. The others must deal with that imposition as well with their own challenges in a world where people’s toes can unexpectedly push through their shoes into the welcoming earth.
And, by the way, David and Sheila – mall or no mall – might want to thank their blessings that, having sprung roots, their arms haven’t also sprouted branches as occurs to the mythological Daphne when, attempting to escape Apollo’s clutches, she turns into a laurel.
Anyway, I’m obliged to admit being left out in the dramatic cold as to the purpose of what the 12-strong Trees contingent is meant to represent as the members chat between and among themselves. Possibly the worst additional calamity they all witness is the fire that destroys David and Sheila’s house. The conflagration isn’t seen but is indicated with lighting and sound contributed by lighting designer Thomas Dunn and sound designer Tei Blow. Note that the Parker Lutz set doesn’t resemble any kind of forest or bordering Connecticut neighborhood as much as it does a Greek theater enhanced with florid entry arches.
The truth is that I spent much of my time watching The Trees trying to understand what playwright Borinsky was getting at. Was the not-always-sanguine David-Sheila relationship a comment on family dysfunction? Was the Jared intrusion on the David-Sheila plight a statement about contemporary city-government exigencies? What about the many costumes Enver Chakartash designed for David, Sheila et al? Are coordinating colors worn by some but not others a giveaway to something or other? I even went so far as to think the play is arguing in favor of saving our disappearing forests.
I came up with nothing. I only came up, firstly, with an appreciation in these vague circumstances of the acting that the cast, especially Barbagallo and Dickinson, conjured under Satter’s committed guidance. Secondly, I came up with the apparent fact that we’ve advanced a far longer distance than I’d previously recognized since the days when the well-made play gave us such 20th-century pleasure. Thirdly, I had the ancillary thought that those only familiar with this century’s theater fare may have more tolerance, more open appreciation for a confounding item like The Trees.
Still at sea as I exited the joint Playwrights Horizon and Page 73 Productions offering, I grabbed a copy of an excerpt from Almanac, the PH magazine. In it I found this edifying explanation: “The Trees is a creation myth in the style of a midrash…a rabbinic form of commentary on the Torah…[that] often takes the form of a story. By telling these stories, we make and remake meaning across generations of the Jewish diaspora….”
Okay. Uh-huh. I evidently missed that David and Sheila are Jewish, although there is the ministering shul Lady. So, I’ll just have to take the Almanac’s word for it.
The Trees opened March 5, 2023, at Playwrights Horizons and runs through March 19. Tickets and information: playwrightshorizons.org
