Theatre in Review: I Am a Tree (Theatre at St. Clement's)

	Dulcy Rogers. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

A woman explores her bizarre, fragmented family history in I Am a Tree, written and performed by Dulcy Rogers; she appears as Claire, who, at the age of 37, finds herself confronting a trio of aunts she never knew existed -- and who, she hopes, will provide critical information about her mother's mental illness. This is the sort of show that, typically, is rooted in the artist's personal experience -- but, by all appearances, this one is pure fiction. It has to be; real life is rarely, if ever, this cutesy and contrived.

As Claire tells us, "Ever since the day I backed out of flying in the Peter Pan harness in the seventh grade and saw my replacement fall out of it and plummet -- into the orchestra pit, breaking his leg -- every choice I've made has been motivated by the most powerful emotion in my body: fear." And, in truth, she has plenty of reason to be afraid. While still a very young girl, Claire's mother was consigned to a mental institution, from which she never returned. Claire was left alone with her father, a scientist whose area of study is "environmental survivalism." "He communicated with me in three-word sentences, consisting of all technical terms," she says. For example, when she complains about a boy who bullies her at school, her father's response is "Strategize. Defend. Persevere." As the play begins, he is on an expedition to Antarctica, where he conducts his research, studiously ignoring his daughter's letters.

Anyway, Claire, who worries that she may be headed for the madhouse herself, stumbles upon her mother's three sisters and seeks them out to learn where it all went wrong. They turn out to be a trio of Auntie Mames, each one kookier than the next. Aurelia is "some kind of musical and humanitarian ambassador of sorts at the UN," who rattles on about Nord-Ubangi head rattles and waxes lyrical about her doomed sister. ("She was the gaiety of The Barber of Seville, the passion of Carmen, and, ultimately, the madness of Lucia di Lammermoor," says Aurelia, in her flowery way.) Next up is Lillian, a wisecracking motormouth who occupies a luxurious, overdecorated Upper West Side apartment with her unseen husband and an army of servants and hangers-on. She describes Claire's mother, who was nicknamed "Mims," after her childhood mispronunciation of M&Ms candy, as "fabulously wicked...our own little Dorothy Parker," and plies Claire with champagne and chocolate, while railing against Claire's father. ("For a man who studies how things survive, it's astounding to me that he only examines petrified things...frozen in a state of fear...like himself.") Then it's off to Lou, a retired journalist who dresses in mannish outfits, owns a six-pack of coffee cups that say "I hate people," and dismisses the likes of Truman Capote, Jackson Pollock, and Gertrude Stein as bores, adding about Joseph Stalin, "Now he was fun." It is here that Claire experiences catharsis, howling in agony, "I can't be my mother!" while Lou tells her, "You are giving birth right now to your own life."

If you haven't guessed already, that last line should make it clear that I Am a Tree is one big string of therapeutic clichés, a my-mother-my-self nightmare, spiked with sitcom gags and teary interludes. Rogers leans hard on each of the sisters' mannerisms, to no effect; I Am a Tree is billed as "an unstable new comedy," but, at the performance I attended, it managed the remarkable accomplishment of not earning a single laugh. At other times, when Claire is venting her rage and longing at her father, or expressing her terror of turning into her mother, the emotions are so raw and overscaled that the effect is embarrassing, as if one had accidentally wandered into a psychologist's office in mid-appointment.

This admixture, of studiedly wacky gags with childlike expressions of rage unfiltered by an adult sensibility, makes for a pretty indigestible stew. What's missing in I Am a Tree is a bit of detachment, some sense of critical distance that would provide the audience with an emotional pathway into the story; perversely, all the onstage emoting keeps us at a distance. The final scene, a mother-daughter encounter in the hospital, makes it clear that, despite the family's long history of separation, betrayal, fury, and guilt, it's really supposed to be all about Claire's journey; everyone else is a supernumerary in her voyage to self-realization.

Based on her performance here, Rogers is a skillful actress, but, as a writer, her inability to shape the material proves fatal despite the obvious sincerity of the effort. Her director, Allan Miller, helps give the production a slick patina, but he can do nothing to paper over its glaring weaknesses. At any rate, Neil Patel's setting, a forest of anorexic tree trunks, with picture frames and red lights interspersed, lends a kind of fairy-tale sensibility to the action, and Yael Lubetzky's lighting is smoothly professional, shifting moods and reshaping the stage with invisible grace. Jason Crystal's sound design provides a number of well-executed effects, but it is also one of the production's most problematic aspects. Is there any reason why the performance is amplified? I know the acoustics in Theatre at St. Clement's are a tad challenging, but I cannot believe that a full reinforcement sound system is necessary. It certainly proves counterproductive here, introducing an intrusive note of technology that further distances Rogers from us.

Then again, this script needs more than natural acoustics. It ends, predictably, with an uplifting epiphany indicating that Claire is finally ready for adulthood. I'm pleased for her, really I am. I'm even more pleased that I don't have to hear another word about her.--David Barbour