Tree of Dreams is a quiet little show billed for young people, but with difficult themes, so it played to mainly an adult audience. The story is told by Duane Forrest through lyrical words and gentle melodies on electric guitar. Forrest is a charismatic performer and draws you into this world. It’s billed as an immersive show and in this tiny room at Gilded Balloon you do feel surrounded by the music and objects that tell the story.
As Forrest talks and plays, a skilled pair manipulate small objects like wooden peg dolls, which are in turn filmed live and then projected onto the black drapes. It is quite fascinating switching your attention from the video projection to the actual objects being moved, then to the video tech who moves around the room capturing the action. It’s all very inventive, using everyday items. At one point, a bag of flour is emptied into a bowl representing the sugar the ‘child’ pours onto their cereal, which then becomes a snow scene with twigs of rosemary stuck in and a small wooden peg suddenly trudging through the snow.
Everything used in Tree of Dreams is low-tech and simple. Small torches highlight the items, like a water tank for the swimming pool or hands intertwined moving upwards to represent the Tree of Dreams. Towards the end, a beautiful puppet swims on as an unnamed sea creature, which felt slightly contradictory given the otherwise consistent use of simple props.
The story of the Tree of Dreams is affecting and almost mythical. Forrest references The Little Prince, The Alchemist and Where the Wild Things Are, and you can hear that influence in the flow of the words. The story explores difficult themes – fear, rejection, feeling different, and illness – coming to a resolution through the Tree of Dreams and the young adult’s experience in the sea. The whole tale is told engagingly through ‘the child’s eyes’. You feel that it would make a lovely storybook.
However, as a piece of theatre it didn’t quite hang together. Possibly there was too much going on – music, object manipulation and live projection – and it distracted from the storytelling rather than enhancing it. With some more development and refining, and possibly playing in a better environment, I could see this piece becoming a real joy.
