There’s been no rain for months. The crops are dying and families are starving. The mayor wants to cut down trees in a nearby forest and sell them to buy food for the starving townsfolk.
But wood nymphs protect the trees and they are willing to die to keep them from being harvested. The ensuing war will pit the mayor’s son Jamie against Adara, the nymph that he loves.
“If a Tree Falls,” an unusual, thought provoking musical written by two recent high school graduates of the Ecology Learning Center in Unity, will be performed this weekend at the Basil Burwell Community Theater in Belfast. The show is being sponsored but not produced by the Belfast Maskers and is being performed in their space.
This is a complex portrait of a community set in the mid-19th century prior to the Industrial Revolution. The songs not only help define the characters but also move the story along and create a fine dramatic arc, rare for many adult playwrights let alone high school students.
It was first performed with a student cast in December at the Clifford Arts Center in Unity. Since then, the script has been revised and new songs added.
The idea for the show grew out of a sketch Etta Hughes drew three years ago of a boy dancing with a nymph. Hughes wrote the music and lyrics for the two-act show. She also wrote the book with former classmate Carolyn Phelps Scholz. Both perform in this production that includes adults, college and younger students.
“That sketch has since transformed from a short story to a splattering of songs, to a script, to a high school show to the production you see today,” the writers said in a program note.
In the Belfast production, Hughes plays Adara, the wood nymph in love with Jamie (Malaya Moores), the son of Tom the Mayor (Neal Jacobs). Her clear soprano voice portrays a wide range of emotions and she embodies the character like a second skin. Her performance is layered and nuanced as if she were a far more experienced actor.
Moores, who is attending a Miami fashion design school, volunteered to help with costumes but wound up in the chorus and took over the role of Jamie after other actors dropped out.
His portrayal is one of the reasons the musical works so well. Moores is emotionally raw on stage and is especially fine in showing how the character is torn between his love for Adara and his loyalty to his family and the village. His tenor blends beautifully with Hughes’ soprano in “Beautiful,” “Follow Me” and “Who Would We Be?” Moores’ solos in “Between Two Worlds” and “Who am I Now?” are painfully beautiful and moving.
Jacobs is compelling as a community leader and father torn between his children, Jamie and Peggy (Allison Pyo), who is his right hand. Pyo stops the show when she sings “Obedient,” a song about how she is the “good” child.
Other cast standouts are Armonie Cohen-Solal as Lyra, Adara’s mother, and Ava Trout as Mother Tree, who occasionally narrates the story and leads the chorus. Sarah Wilcox-Hughes, Jack Conway, Isla Hughes, Miah Caron, Maria Jacobs and Scholz make up the chorus. They alternatively portray trees and the villagers.
“If a Tree Falls” is a daring and mature piece of theater that deserves a wide audience. High school theater teachers and coaches should see this musical and consider it an option when considering what shows to produce over the next few years. Theatergoers will want to be able to say they saw Phelps Scholz and Hughes’ first show when this team’s future shows turn up on Broadway.
“If a Tree Falls” will be performed at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Basil Burwell Community Theater, 17 Court St., Belfast. For tickets, visit belfastmaskers.com.
