MotherTree
I went into MotherTree already feeling lots of things. I wanted to like it, I really did...
But I had concerns...
To start with, I have never read a more confusing or, frankly, off putting description of a show than that for MotherTree:
"Weaving Dance, Music, and Magic, MotherTree creates a unique vision of our relationships with trees. Faery Magic and Earth Science engage our imaginations as we travel through the mycorrhizal network to learn from the Trees. The urgency of Climate Crisis compels us to take environmental action and to commit deep work grounded in reciprocality and respect. In an age marked by overconsumption, grief, and isolation, MotherTree creates dynamic beauty and inspiration. The act of getting lost allows us to see."
It left me with questions: A whole play about our relationships with trees? Not only that, but a unique vision of that relationship? Faery Magic + Earth Science? (This sounds like the show is a traveling elementary school play meant to entertain and help you prep for an upcoming standardized test...) The mycorrhizal network? (I looked it up and I did actually know what this was in concept, but not this word...) This play is going to give us an answer to climate crisis? Overconsumption, grief and isolation are not three words I would normally put next to each other... plus dynamic beauty and inspiration don't seem like answers for any of them...and I need more of an explanation as to how getting lost allows us to see.
There were elements of MotherTree that were better than what I expected, but mostly it was exactly what I expected. And it makes me a little sad to say that, because this show has a great heart. I think most people can get behind the need to urgently address the climate crisis. Most of us can relate, in different ways, to having a strong relationship with nature and a desire to preserve and protect it. The program notes even say that the show is dedicated to the creator's mother... given the themes in the piece of losing and mourning a mother I can only imagine the connection the creator has with the material, and how much they care about this project. I really, really don't want to comment negatively on it.
But it's...just...not great.
The basic plot of MotherTree, I think, is that a young woman and her boyfriend come to the forest to scatter the ashes of the young woman's dead mother. She hears someone (a mother, apparently,) crying and, in trying to help, gets sucked into a tree and goes on a journey through the fungal (mycorrhizal) network to hear the stories of various trees before finally scattering her mother's ashes. If you're confused... well, I am too. But this show is clearly meant to be less of a story, and more an EXPERIENCE - right down to the pre-show audience interaction - which includes an actor (one of the faeries) asking patrons, one at a time, "Do you come here of your own free will?" Patrons must answer "Yes" before being allowed into the space. Obviously this slows down the audience trying to be seated and frankly gives a WAY too intense task to the actor who must make STRONG eye contact, and individually interact with, EVERY MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE.
Let's start with the good things. The technical aspects are fantastic. The set (Ann Maria Gordon), lights (J Mwaki), hair and makeup design (Olivia Rose McCain), sound design (Johann Solo) and instrumental music (musical direction is by Anderson Dear, though no composer is credited...I have a feeling several of the songs were versions of folk songs, at least in part), make-up/hair (Olivia Roe McCain) and costume design (Maddie Lamb) are awesome. This is a full world created in front of us, one that, purely based on the design elements, we very much want to spend time in. I could imagine children hankering to climb the large tree and swing from the rope swings. The body paint that reveals itself under violet light does wonders, and it is all around a wonderful looking and sounding piece.
Most of the cast are really trying their hardest. Caili Crow plays a young, impish Fae as well as an American Chestnut tree. Crow is also credited as the dramaturg on the piece as well as co projection designer (along with Johann Solo). Her performance is fun and charming, and the projection design is great, but I wonder what her dramaturgy entailed... Sigh plays an adorable fairy called Pecan who provides much of the needed comic relief in the show and it was a delight whenever she was front and center. The performers who played the trees, Tyagaraja Welch, Laura D'Eramo, Benjamin Cervantes, Gabriel Maldonado, Katrina Saporsantos and, as mentioned, Caili Crow, are doing an admirable job at making LONG, abstract, poetic monologues (and I do mean looong) fly. Alaithia Velez is...fine? as Thyme, the magical guide on the human girl, Amber's, journey, and Logan Lasiter as Amber is earnest and charming - we like watching her even when we grow a bit tired of her character. I will say, though, that the director should not be giving solos (or, frankly, in a piece like this, casting in the first place) people who, let's be honest, can't sing. And I don't mean "aren't the best singers", I mean I couldn't tell what key the song was in. Some of the performers, such as Logan Lasiter, have lovely voices. Some...not as much.
The essence of the issues with this show is that it's clearly not trying to do the heavy work of speaking to anyone who isn't already walking in as a diehard fan of this project and it's message. There's no real investigation going on, just some lip service it. And that leads to some big cross wires between the "idea" of the show, and what it's actually expressing (or not expressing.) One of the oldest adages in the entertainment industry is "show don't tell." This piece does lots, and lots, and lots of "telling." I would argue "preaching."
One example is when Bud (Amber's, I'm assuming, boyfriend,) who has literally just witnessed his girlfriend being dragged into a tree and vanishing, urgently tries to rescue her by following the only remaining logical course of action: chopping down the tree that just ate his girlfriend. This action is framed as a horrific act of villainy. The Fae cry and scream as he chops at the tree (which belongs to Thyme), and his cries of "I'm going to save you Amber!" "Don't worry, I'm coming for you!" Are layered with such statements as "I don't like being confused," "I'm not comfortable not knowing," Yes, chopping down a tree for, frankly, most reasons, isn't good. But framing a boyfriend trying to save his girlfriend's life (and, let's be honest, possibly soul given Bud's perspective) by chopping down a tree is a completely reasonable action.
There's no inherent logic to how the "magic" of this world works, and breadcrumbs are left that go nowhere. Apparently no one in all of history has been able to stop the "mother" crying, but somehow Amber, by, literally, listening to trees, is able to do it? (And she's framed as not the first who has tried...) Are we seriously saying that no one, other than Amber, in all of history has ever successfully "listened" to trees? The ensemble of creatures are fairies, and also plants? (Thyme is a fairy and, as we learn, literally a patch of thyme growing under a tree...) There is no addressing the climate crisis (as the show description claims there is) and no solutions about how to actually protect nature (which we are in DIRE need of doing) other than the idea of sitting under trees and "listening" to them. At the very most, this show is going to get an average person to look up on occasion when they walk past a tree. It is really saying nothing to the kinds of people who, for example, are literally destroying the Amazon rainforest in the name of capitalist greed.
And those are the kinds of things that make this show fall flat. I can pretty much guarantee that anyone going to see it already agrees with (at least most of) its message. And anyone who happens to be in the audience who doesn't is not going to be converted by watching it. This show's fatal flaw is that it's preaching to people who already want to be there and support - and those people will likely look past its huge dramaturgical problems. Those who aren't, if they go at all, are most likely going to leave feeling reinforced in their feeling that theater "isn't for them". MotherTree had the potential to ask complex questions and really explore issues in a way that would invite people in and challenge them... but that's not what it's doing.
All in all, the show simply feels amateurish, which surprises me given the length of development of the piece and the grants and awards given to the creator and production (though, who knows, said grants could have been focused on "artistic works about trees" and there aren''t many projects that fit that narrow field.) It feels like a coming together of a bunch of friends, all at very different levels of technique and artistry, who messed around with the passion project of one of them, with everyone always patting each other on the back, and no actual "adult" in the room who would question, investigate and say "no." It does feel like the kind of show meant for kids - performed at assemblies or at museums, meant to create a general "vibe" and inspire further curiosity amongst children for whom this is their first introduction to a specific subject. It feels both self congratulatory and complacent. And it frustrates me because I feel like these artists could do better - if they really challenged themselves in the way they claim to be challenging the audience.
Laura Sele
MotherTree is playing March 29th - April 20th at the Vortex Theater in Austin, TX
Tickets: https://the-vortex.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket#/events/a0SUf000001QbhhMAC
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