Theater Review—

Powerful ‘Syringa Tree’ Has Opened Long Wharf’s Season

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN — Pamela Gien’s The Syringa Tree is something unique and wonderful in the world of theater. Conceived in a playwriting class as a spontaneous exercise, Gien’s autobiographical story about the commingled love and bitter hatred she felt for her native South Africa was turned into a one-woman tour-de-force in which she acts out 24 different parts – male and female, adult and child, black and white, English, Afrikaaner and Bantu.

When it opened in New York, off Broadway, Gien won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, as well as the Obies for both Performance and Best Play of 2001, among other accolades.

Now the play is the season opener at Long Wharf Theatre, under the direction of Larry Moss,  who had been the teacher in that original drama class, and who encouraged Gien both to tell the story, and who helped her develop it for its world premiere in Seattle. This time the acting is done (at alternating performances) by Eva Kaminsky and Gin Hammond. We saw a performance by Ms Hammond, who received a well deserved standing ovation, but apparently Ms Kaminsky is every bit as good.

The play follows the life of Elizabeth, the six-year-old daughter of liberal English parents in Johannesburg, South Africa, as she gradually discovers the realities of Apartheid, the enforced racial “separation” that was modeled on the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, which Hitler used to strip the Jews of all rights.

The family enjoys all the comforts of the white middle class, with plenty of servants including maids, a chauffeur, and a gardener. But when her beloved nursemaid has a baby of her own, by law it cannot stay with the family: only workers with “passes” can live in white areas; their children must be sent to live with relatives in the black township.

As Elizabeth’s family rallies to support Salamina, the nurse, by concealing the child in the house, the danger of being reported by neighbors casts the first shadow on the friendship between the lonely white girl and the merry, affectionate toddler.

Elizabeth sees black men being beaten in the street by policemen, for the “crime” of being caught without their passes. She becomes aware of the climate of fear and helplessness that permeates the lives of the servants, when the little girl disappears in a bureaucratic muddle at the one hospital that treats blacks.

As Elizabeth reaches adolescence, the brutal repression of the police state that South Africa has become, under the Afrikaaner government, triggers anger and rebellion, culminating in a pair of terrible events that touch her personally, leading her to abandon her country and emigrate to America.

The end involves a reconciliation of sorts, as the country stumbles toward a reunification, with the elimination of Apartheid and the extension of voting rights to all its citizens, regardless of race or color. Nelson Mandela is about to be elected president, and  what had once been a forbidden protest song, “God Bless Africa,” will become the new national anthem.

Despite all the individual pain and suffering, the play holds out some hope for humanity’s capacity to prevail over prejudice and hatred. This is a message that speaks to our own legacy of racial turmoil, as well as to South Africa’s future.

All of this story is acted out in a seamless progression of scenes in which the sole performer plays all the roles, changing accents, altering her posture, and “becoming” each of the characters. That in itself is no mean feat, but it is the dramatic story slowly building up to its devastating climax is what makes The Syringa Tree a powerful piece of theater.

(Performances continue until October 19 and include a special audio described matinee on October 11 and a Talkback Tuesday program on October 14. Call 203-787-4282 or visit www.LongWharf.org for details.)