Review: Love in Pine by Last Act Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs

Gary Jaffe's Love in Pine is a coming-of-age story, a coming-out story and a fable with a tree spirit and ghosts, all this with multiple realities and time periods anchored in the fictitious town of Pine, Texas at a time of conflagrations. This is unmistakably Bastrop, at about the time that Jaffe left Yale Drama School to return to his hometown of Austin. One wonders uneasily how much of this is auto-therapy, considering that a central character is seen job hunting on the east coast and then returning via some magical transport to the Texas that she holds in disdain.

Just now as I put the header on this piece, my fingers of their own volition typed Love in Pain instead of Love in Pine. That was a Freudian slip, not a an effort to be snide.  There is a lot of pain in all of these characters and they work over the past obsessively as those big flames draw nearer.

The central obsessive incident is clearly depicted on the poster: on their way to their high school prom, with arrangements in place for post-dance coitus, the couple crashes against a huge pine tree -- ironically, the same one in which they carved their joined initials when they were thirteen years old. Just as Sister and Teacher had done when they were the same age, some years before that.

Douglas Mackie and Bridget Farr act out the terrible finality of that accident on the stage left addition to the curious double-elevated L-shaped playing space. This takes place in the high-ceilinged warehouse called "Broken Neck," normally a venue for punk rock.

At stage right, upon the existing stage of the venue, is the patchwork construction that represents the Tree. We are in non-representational reality here -- Jaffe likened it to settings of Japanese Noh drama -- and this great tree reminded me more of a baobab or sequoia than a pine.  At mid-height in that great trunk is a gauzy window and behind it stands the character addressed as Tree.

Emily Madden as the dimly glimpsed tree spirit converses placidly with Teacher, who has has placed a table and chair in front of the tree.  He evokes the bloodied spirits of the dead young couple, trying to coach them through a sequence of events that will not terminate in that fatal crash.  They're giddy with anticipation and, increasingly, with drink.  He does not succeed.

This tree-talk sequence is undertaken without preliminary or preparation of the audience, so at first Teacher seems a bit delusional or simple minded. If Chris Hejl as Teacher had set it up by first speaking to us, however briefly, we'd probably have found it easier to enter that game, accepting his rules for the reality. 

Sister appears, seated in the spotlight and speaking earnestly during a job interview, apparently for a position in advertising. She digresses into talking about Texas and her origins in a small town that she has left behind.  She reacts to media reports of a raging fire in Central Texas and then is somehow transported through the television screen back to that place.

Be advised that this is a two-act play. That's nowhere signaled, and the first act ended so abruptly and dramatically that for several long moments I was uncertain whether there would be a continuation. Folks in the row behind me were related to one of the actors and seemed to have been better briefed.  I followed their example and lingered in place through what did turn out to be an intermission.

The second act is a further investigation of events that contributed directly and indirectly to the accidents and deaths. By unexplained conjuring, Teacher and Sister trade places with the young couple.  All four undress and trade garments, so that the survivors are wearing the bloodstained clothing of the vanished as they enact the events of that emotion-charged and disorienting evening. There's an affecting intensity in these scenes that allows both dead and living some measure of understanding -- as all the while, the flames approach to consume all of these realities.

When summarized in this way Love in Pine may seem overly clever in its structure. But the action moves steadily forward and the cast of young adults makes evident their acceptance and respect for the concepts. Karen Alvarado as Sister portrays her with dark-eyed, thoughtful depth. Chris Hejl delivers the self-deluded, grieving teacher with convincing investment in the character. Bridget Farr as Girl and Douglas Mackie as Boy are entirely believable, both in their youthful exhilaration and in their post-mortem confusion. Emily Madden's Tree floats detached from the others, acquiring a bit of history and personhood in the second act when it's all but too late.

EXTRA

Click to view the program card of Love in Pine by the Last Act Theatre Company

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Love in Pine
by Gary Jaffe
Last Act Theater Company