Two-and-a-half years ago, Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP) had what could only be described as a sensation on its hands. Well, it had a sensation in theatre terms, which is relatively smaller, quieter and more polite than a regular sensation. It had just premièred The Syringa Tree starring Meg Roe, and the entire community broke into tearful applause in unison. Now, on April 1, the play will open for a second run.
“It's a bit weird, because memory is a tricky thing,” says returning director Vanessa Porteous. “When we remember seeing a production that was completely transforming, we might remember it differently a couple of years later. That's a bit of an anxious feeling — that there are people out there who want you to live up to their ideal of what the show was.”
The Syringa Tree is a coming-of-age memory play revolving around a six-year-old girl named Elizabeth Grace, a member of a well-to-do white family living in apartheid-era South Africa. The eponymous tree sits in the family's yard, a cultural symbol of memory and love of family that's distorted by the endemic injustice of that time. Though the story is presented entirely from Elizabeth's perspective, the show incorporates 23 roles — all of which are played by the endearing, terrifying, adorable, reprehensible, great, terrible, undeniably versatile Meg Roe.
“I think the truth of the matter is that it’s all about Meg Roe — the main reason to bring the show back is so that everyone can go and see that incredible feat of acting that she's doing,” says Porteous. “The primary relationship in the theatre is between the actor and the audience. I don't work for ATP — they hired me. They hired me and they hired Meg. I don't know what the ins and outs of hiring Meg were, but I would think that it was non-negotiable.”
After fielding numerous requests from the theatre-going public to bring the show back, ATP set about bringing the major creative people behind the first show back together — namely Roe and Porteous. Though the approach to replicate the original might guarantee that the show's first audience will be as pleased as possible upon their repeat viewing, it also presents Porteous with a creative dilemma. While acknowledging the success of the original run and attempting to reproduce it is certainly what ATP has in mind as a company, this art-as-business mentality is famous for stifling the art itself.
“I'm responsible for bringing the play to the audience,” says Porteous. “That's the director's job. Bringing what's on pieces of paper to life for an audience. I wouldn't consider myself one of those artists — if such artists even exist — who isn't thinking about the audience at all. I am — I'm one of them. I'm the first audience.”
Though Porteous does recognize the sometimes necessary non-delineation between art and business in theatre, she's also quick to emphasize that another reason for bringing a play back — or adding it to a repertoire — is if it's a truly beautiful story that warrants being told and told again. Anyone who was present at the original performance is all too aware of how effortlessly The Syringa Tree meets these criteria.
“Ultimately, you just have to ignore [the business side],” says Porteous. “You have to do the play. I'm sure that's what Meg does when she gets up on her feet and starts acting it out. She's not thinking about pleasing the audience. She's thinking about honouring the play and the characters within the play.”
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