Tangled branches in Company One's ‘The Meeting Tree'

Boston Globe

5 days ago

Under the characteristically astute direction of Williams, a dab hand at solving dramatic puzzles, 'The Meeting Tree' delves into questions of race, possession, dispossession, and the obligation to right history's wrongs.
What makes it all the more impressive is that Borders traverses that vast thematic terrain without losing focus on the girls and women from two families who stand at the play's center.
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There are few trickier tasks for a writer and director than blending intimacy and scope, but Borders and Williams achieve it. They keep the action legible amid the crosscurrents of different time periods, and, crucially, in those moments when a living person is conversing with a long-dead relative.
The conflict at the heart of 'The Meeting Tree' — and the stakes involved — are established early on when two women in their 30s face each other on an Alabama farm in 2020.
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Neither one seems inclined to give an inch in their protracted standoff. One, Sofia (Anjie Parker), is Black. The other, Alison (Sarah Elizabeth Bedard), is white. And Sofia has a message for Alison.
'I want the house and the land that was promised,' she says firmly. 'This is my ancestral home. And your people tried to keep it from us, but no more. Not one more generation will go without what is owed.' But Alison makes clear she isn't going anywhere.
The word 'reparations' is not mentioned in 'The Meeting Tree.' It doesn't have to be.
At center stage is a giant, looming pecan tree (scenic design is by the ubiquitous Cristina Todesco). The tree, a large tract of farm land, and a house on that land are claimed as property — and, in the case of the house, inhabited — by Alison's family. Back in the 1850s, the patriarch of the white family that owned the propery had a child with his white wife and another child with an enslaved Black woman.
Sofia, who is pregnant, is intent on finding the will left by the patriarch, who had, according to family lore, left the land to her Black ancestors.
The pecan tree is where 10-year-old Dixie Mae (Beyoncé
Martinez), who is Black, meets nine-year-old Tessie (Rachel Hall), who is white, for the first time, in 1930. Dixie Mae is gathering pecans for her grandmother to bake into pies they will sell to make ends meet.
After some verbal jousting, Dixie Mae and Tessie become friends. There's a touching innocence to how easily the girls forge a bond, unburdened by family histories of which they have scant knowledge.
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But Dixie Mae's grandmother, Kitty (Jacqui Parker), and Tessie's grandmother, Elizabeth (Alex Alexander), both know that history. Indeed, they both live it. The question is whether any of the characters in 'The Meeting Tree' can escape it.
The performances are strong across the board, with Martinez, as Dixie Mae, a particular standout. She excels at conveying the sense that Dixie Mae can hardly contain the energy bursting within her.
With contested property driving the action and periodic whiffs of the supernatural, 'The Meeting Tree' contains echoes of
But 'The Meeting Tree' can stand on its own, thanks partly to Borders's sharp ear for dialogue and her knack for creating vivid characters (and letting them have their say).
And also, importantly, her belief — to judge by the stirring final scene of her play — in the possibility of change.
THE MEETING TREE
Play by B. Elle Borders. Directed by Summer L. Williams. Presented by Company One Theatre in partnership with Front Porch Arts Collective and the City of Boston's Office of Arts and Culture. At Strand Theatre, Boston.
Through Aug. 9. All tickets are pay-what-you-want.
Don Aucoin can be reached at