The truth of trees

The seed of Sap — the production debuting tonight by Winnipeg indie company Theatre by the River — was planted during the reign of Augustus Caesar.

Published four years ago by British playwright Rafaella Marcus, Sap is a fable that shines light on the epic first-century poetry of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, intertwining the story of Daphne — who wills herself to be transformed into a tree when pursued by an overzealous suitor — as a modern reminder of the universal need for peer-led queer sanctuary amid an increasingly violent political landscape for members of the LGBTTQ+ community.

When director Elio Zarrillo encountered the poetic script, it seemed an obvious match for Theatre by the River, a roving company founded in 2006 to produce work that builds compassion and respect for underserved narrative.

After getting initial interest, Zarrillo — a Winnipeg-raised playwright and performer who’s been onstage in recent years at Winnipeg Jewish Theatre (Narrow Bridge) and Prairie Theatre Exchange (The Outside Inn) — chose an appropriate location for a readthrough with Theatre by the River’s production team.

Inspired by Munson Park, the sprawling, somewhat edenic enclosure along the Assiniboine River, the creative team reached a pair of conclusions that have come to define their interpretation of the script, which was first produced to raves in London in 2022.

Before arriving at the final interpretation, “we all agreed immediately on two things,” says Zarrillo. Those two things: the show would be performed in the round with audiences encircling the action, and the score would be provided by the ever-flexible voice of a cello.

As seen in a rehearsal Wednesday afternoon, those decisions seem to have enriched the production’s level of connectivity, with actors Hera Nalam and Liz Whitbread weaving throughout the space in a way that serves to erase the barrier between performance and perception.

In an in-the-round setting, the audience is reminded that the experiences encoded within Marcus’s script — including those related to intimate partner violence — are anything but mythological: as the text states, citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, bisexual women experience significantly higher rates of rape, physical violence and stalking compared to both lesbians and heterosexual women.

Playing Daphne, whose relationship with a woman is threatened by painful secrets and struggles to communicate in the aftermath of trauma, Nalam says she connected with Sap in powerful ways.

“The reason I was so excited about this script, the reason it was an immediate yes, was because it felt like I was reading my own story,” says Nalam, a Shakespeare in the Ruins regular who also starred in the Winnipeg-set rom-com I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight.

“I’m sure there are other bisexual people who are in the state where Daphne is, figuring out their ‘treeness’ and finding what it means for them to be able to stand in their truth and find community in that.”

“In a sensitive and also complicated way, the show doesn’t give any easy answers,” says Whitbread, a University of Winnipeg acting grad currently based in Saskatoon. “It’s really living in those sort of murky areas, talking about consent and sexual violence, with Daphne constantly reckoning with the question of whether she’s in the right. It’s just so real.”

The last time the two U of W grads worked together was in 2020, when Whitbread and Tatiana Carnevale directed Nalam’s Romeo to Sarah Flynn’s Juliet in an reinterpretation for ShakespeareFest, a Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre event that hasn’t returned since the pandemic.

As Whitbread and Nalam put one another through their paces in explosive, Catch-22-esque dialogue — punctuated by requests to stop talking, closely followed by reassurances of mutual listening — composer Grace Morningstar accurately describes the tension shared between the two performers and the various roles they’re tasked with embodying on stage, including five depicted by Whitbread.

Morningstar’s instrumentation, performed as live accompaniment, narrates the swell of rising and sinking conflict in a style reminiscent of Devonté Hynes’ score for The Invite, director Olivia Wilde’s acclaimed polyamory play.

“I think the cello is such a perfect choice for this show,” says Morningstar, who also speaks lines of dialogue as the embodiment of the tree onstage. “Firstly, because it’s a very large piece of wood, well-represented within a tree by a tree made of trees. I use a wooden bow strung with horse hair, and in order to get any sound from the bow, it needs to be rubbed with rosin, which is treated tree sap.

“The music wouldn’t be here without at least some element of sap.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com