Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Beowulf Alley Theatre presents "Fifth Planet and Other Plays"

Beowulf Alley Theatre presents "Fifth Planet and Other Plays"

Contact: Beth Dell
(520) 622-4460
email: theatre@beowulfalley.org


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Beowulf Alley Theatre Company Presents Fifth Planet and Other Plays
Third show of the season is an Arizona Premier

TUCSON, ARIZ. (Dec. 19, 2007) — Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, 11 S. 6th Ave., will present “Fifth Planet and Other Plays,” a collection of one acts by David Auburn. The show previews Jan. 17 & 18 at 7:30 p.m. Preview tickets are $10. Performances run Thurs. – Sat., Jan. 19, 24-26, 31, Feb. 1-2, 7-9, 2008 at 7:30 p.m., with Sunday matinees Jan. 20, 27, Feb. 3 & 10 at 1:30 p.m. Tickets range from $16-$19 with internet discounts available online at http://www.beowulfalley.org/ or call 882-0555. Nell Summers directs this production that explores how fate impacts the human experience.
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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Black, White and Gray

KUAT-FM KUAT-FM Radio:
Cue Sheet
by James Reel

"...a play I highly recommend."

On a farm outside Johannesburg, South Africa, there lives a little girl named Elizabeth Grace. She spends so much time in the big, fragrant syringa tree on the property that her nanny, a patient Xhosa woman named Salamina, calls the girl Lizzie Monkey. The syringa tree is a place of small wonders, as well as a hideout and a refuge--not only for Lizzie, but for her Xhosa and Zulu neighbors trying to avoid brutal encounters with the white authorities.

The Syringa Tree is also a play by the South African-born playwright and actress Pamela Gien. It involves 24 characters--white and black, young and old, male and female--all played by a single performer. That's Patagonia resident Belinda Torrey, in a fine production now on stage at Beowulf Alley Theatre.

You’ll find the full review here.

Tucson Weekly : Arts : White Conscience

Tucson Weekly : Arts : White Conscience:

"... in a fine production now on stage at Beowulf Alley Theatre. ... there's absolutely nothing amateurish about her [Belnida Torrey] performance in The Syringa Tree. Indeed, she pulls off the one-woman show with aplomb, holding the stage through two full hours of text, bringing her primary character from childhood to maturity, and sometimes convincingly playing three or four different characters in a single conversation."


PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 13, 2007:
White Conscience

Apartheid in the 1960s is the focus of Beowulf Alley's impressive one-woman play
By JAMES REEL


On a farm outside Johannesburg, South Africa, there lives a little girl named Elizabeth Grace. She spends so much time in the big, fragrant syringa tree on the property that her nanny, a patient Xhosa woman named Salamina, calls the girl Lizzie Monkey. The Syringa tree is a place of small wonders, as well as a hideout and a refuge--not only for Lizzie, but for her Xhosa and Zulu neighbors trying to avoid brutal encounters with the white authorities.

The Syringa Tree is also a play by the South African-born playwright and actress Pamela Gien. It involves 24 characters--white and black, young and old, male and female--all played by a single performer. That's Patagonia resident Belinda Torrey, in a fine production now on stage at Beowulf Alley Theatre.

Torrey seems to have spent most of her adult life as a science teacher, and she calls herself a "hobby actress." But there's absolutely nothing amateurish about her performance in The Syringa Tree. Indeed, she pulls off the one-woman show with aplomb, holding the stage through two full hours of text, bringing her primary character from childhood to maturity, and sometimes convincingly playing three or four different characters in a single conversation.

Lizzie is a white girl, the daughter of a doctor, growing up in 1960s South Africa, a fine time to be white and privileged, but a hellish time to be black. Under apartheid, the indigenous people were subject to severe restrictions on when and where they could live, work and travel. If you were black and happened to be out without the proper documentation, or even merely out past the curfew for blacks at night, and you saw the police coming down the road, the best thing to do would be to clamber into the nearest tree and hope to avoid another harassment, arrest or beating.

Lizzie's family, of mostly English descent, has no sympathy for the apartheid system, which was instituted and fostered mainly by the Afrikaner, or Dutch-descended, population. Of course, apartheid wouldn't have been possible without the complicity of the English South Africans, and not every Afrikaner was a maniacal racist, but the situation is almost always simplified for dramatic purposes.
Lizzie has no idea what's going on. She knows her parents don't like the Afrikaner minister who lives next door, and she knows that the minister's daughter is bossy and unpleasant but still an interesting friend to have across the fence. She knows that the Xhosa and Zulu men and women working for the white families in her neighborhood are interesting, too, but she can't quite grasp why they're so jumpy at night, and why their evenings of tale-telling around a campfire fall apart whenever a police cruiser comes down the road. Lizzie's is an enchanted world of fairy dust in sunbeams, and blue glitter drifting from a beloved clown, and white family and black friends she loves.

Lizzie begins to get an education in social realities when Salamina, her beloved nanny, gives birth to a child who is not properly documented. Lizzie's family conceals the birth, and the little girl herself, for several years, although Lizzie doesn't grasp who, exactly, is risking what. Later, a white relative is murdered for no real reason by a Rhodesian freedom fighter, and this finally signals the end of Lizzie's childhood idyll. How she comes to terms with all of this when older is the subject of the play's later scenes.

Torrey spends most of her time in character as the young Lizzie, presenting her as spoiled but innocent, not too awfully cutesy, and not so self-centered that you lose sympathy for her. Most impressively, toward the end of the play, Torrey gives us a grown-up Lizzie who is quite obviously the same character, if still a bit childlike; it's difficult to maintain this kind of continuity when you're jumping forward 20 years, from child to adult, but all the more necessary here, so the adult Lizzie doesn't get lost among all the other characters.

Salamina is equally well drawn: slower but constantly moving, her voice coming from deep within her belly. No doubt dialect coach Eva Wright offered some significant help to Torrey in sorting out the characters, and director Roger Johnson has kept Torrey focused; he also kept the action fluid. The story plays out on a very simple set, a rough swing suspended above the stage, with a curtain of streamers behind. A change in scene is usually signaled by a dip in the lights, or by Torrey passing briefly behind the streamers--just enough to define the structure of the play (which initially seems very stream-of-consciousness) without becoming clunky.

If there's something to complain about here, it's that we're seeing yet another story of apartheid told from a white person's point of view. How many apartheid dramas can you name that truly center on blacks, rather than white crusaders? Athol Fugard's Boesman and Lena, the film Catch a Fire and a couple of others, but beyond that, apartheid becomes a vehicle for stories about white conscience.
Yes, The Syringa Tree is about white conscience, but it's also about the bonds between people. And any play in which people of color are persecuted because they lack the proper documentation will have particular resonance during our own sometimes unsavory immigration debates.

The Syringa Treepresented by Beowulf Alley Theatre Company7:30 p.m., Thursday-Saturday, Dec. 13-15; 1:30 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 1611 S. Sixth Ave.$10-$19882-0555; beowulfalley.org

Apartheid tale features remarkable solo flight | www.tucsoncitizen.com ®

Apartheid tale features remarkable solo flight www.tucsoncitizen.com ®:

"Beowulf Alley Theatre is presenting Belinda Torrey as that multifaceted narrator in a production by the Tin Shed Theater of Patagonia, directed by Robert Johnson. Her performance is a remarkable solo flight that reminds us the policy of apartheid was a political construction. "

Apartheid tale features remarkable solo flight
CHUCK GRAHAM
Published: 12.13.2007


As the world sorts out its racial differences, stories such as "The Syringa Tree" resonate.
Pamela Gien of South Africa has written a compelling play about one girl's coming of age and loss of innocence during the last days of apartheid.

The construction of the play, as much as the story, gives "The Syringa Tree" its relevance. Gien developed it as a full-length theater piece in which one actor plays 24 characters. There are males and females, young and old, black and white.
The challenge for the actor is to give full range to all these characters as each one acquires a specific personality.

For the audience, transported to South Africa, the experience is like listening to a story of an important incident as told by the village storyteller.

Beowulf Alley Theatre is presenting Belinda Torrey as that multifaceted narrator in a production by the Tin Shed Theater of Patagonia, directed by Robert Johnson. Her performance is a remarkable solo flight that reminds us the policy of apartheid was a political construction.
During this time in South Africa there were many white people and many black people who genuinely cared for one another. Just as in Europe there were gentiles trying to save Jews from Hitler's persecution.

Because there are so many characters in Torrey's tale, it is a little difficult to follow, particularly in the first act as we sort out the sounds and mannerisms that go with each person. The stage set consists of a large white circle painted on the floor and a backdrop consisting of long strips of dyed cloth. A child's swing hangs in the center of the circle.

Torrey wears a simple, neutral-colored dress. She doesn't have any props. To imply a change of scene she slips behind those strips of cloth and comes back out a few seconds later. Occasionally some sound effects or a change in the lighting will add a new dimension.

Parts of Gien's story are autobiographical. The play begins with Elizabeth at age 6, sitting on that swing with her back to the audience. We follow her through adolescence and on to adulthood when she marries an American.

By birth Elizabeth is white, English and South African. Her father is a doctor. The family lives on a farm near Johannesburg. Her live-in nanny is Salamina, a black treated with respect as an essential part of the family.

To establish the setting, Elizabeth talks about her childhood, telling of incidents such as playing outdoors, getting all muddy and being washed off with a garden hose. We also learn that the homes of black servants don't have any plumbing.

There is a humorous visit from the church minister, a man so overweight he can barely fit into the family's nicest living room chair. Then a black child is born in the home and its presence is hidden from the authorities.

By the time Elizabeth is a teen there are anti-apartheid demonstrations in the streets. White people dare not visit the townships where black people live, particularly after dark. Having the correct identification papers is essential for everyone.

After intermission there are riots, demonstrations and raids as South Africa civilization flies apart. Violence touches Elizabeth's family as well, but in the end there is also resolution.
Grade: B

Friday, December 07, 2007

'Syringa Tree' a tale of apartheid

'Syringa Tree' a tale of apartheid www.azstarnet.com ®


Published: 12.07.2007
'Syringa Tree' a tale of apartheid
By Kathleen Allen
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

It's not often that a play reaches out and grabs an actor by the shoulders and says, "Do me, do me."
But it happened to Belinda Torrey with "The Syringa Tree," which Beowulf Alley Theatre opens today.
"I have a background that's so similar to the author's background," she said in a phone interview from her Patagonia home. "Not only can I do this, I really have to do it. It's a real personal story for me, as well."

"The Syringa Tree," written by Pamela Gien, is the tale of two families, one black, one white, and the two children born into the household they share in 1960s South Africa, when apartheid was still a heavy albatross around the country's neck.

Gien grew up in South Africa, and though the play is largely fiction, it's based on two actual events from her life: her grandfather's murder when she was 10, and the birth and concealment of her nanny's child.
"I was raised in a house with black nannies," Torrey said. "My nanny was my rock. She left when I was around 12, and I was devastated. When I read this story, I said, 'Oh, I know this story. I know how this girl feels.' "

Though largely told through the eyes of 6-year-old Elizabeth, the one-woman play requires Torrey to play about 22 characters.

Not a big deal, she said.

"It's surprisingly easy," she said, explaining that she often assumes voices and different characters when she tells stories.

"I especially do it with my siblings," she said. "They know what's going on. People who don't know me think I've fallen off the deep end."

And while the play takes place in a particular country at a particular time in history, it's a universal one, said Torrey.

"The story spans four generations," said Torrey. "It would be unusual if there were people in the audience who hadn't experienced the loss, goodbyes, reunions, that happen in this story. Everyone is touched."

Preview
"The Syringa Tree"
• Presented by: Beowulf Alley Theatre Company.
• Playwright: Pamela Gien.
• Director: Roger Johnson.
• When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Thursday through Dec. 15; 1:30 p.m. Sunday and Dec. 16. No performance Saturday.
• Where: Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. 6th Ave.
• Tickets: $14-$19.
• Information: 882-0555 or www.beowulfalley.org.
•Cast: Belinda Torrey.
• Running time: 2 hours, plus one intermission.

● Contact reporter Kathleen Allen at kallen@azstarnet.com or 573-4128.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Talking to herself habit helps Torrey to play role | www.tucsoncitizen.com ®

Talking to herself habit helps Torrey to play role www.tucsoncitizen.com ®:
Published: 12.06.2007

Talking to herself habit helps Torrey to play role
CHUCK GRAHAM
Tucson Citizen Published:

Patagonia, Ariz., is not generally known as a hot spot for theater. But Belinda Torrey grew up in New York City. More specifically, on Long Island. Then she lived in Montana and in the Puget Sound area before life's travels brought her to Patagonia 11 years ago.

But earlier this year another Patagonian, Roger Johnson, handed Torrey a copy of the script for "The Syringa Tree" by expatriate South African playwright Pamela Gien.

Johnson and Torrey worked up their production, giving five performances at Patagonia's own Tin Shed Theatre.

When Beowulf Alley Theatre here in the Baked Apple announced it was looking for shows to present, Johnson contacted the theater. Talks ensued and the dates were set.

"The play starts when the child is 6, she is remembering her own grandparents. By the end of the play, she is 35," Torrey said. "To be doing it is such an honor for me. I always want my performance to be a tribute to my own nanny, who meant so much to me."