“Ash tree”

The busy rustling of an artist at work echoes from the cobwebby walls of the “workshop,” a decrepit garage with a makeshift wooden entrance built into the large automatic door. Inside, the artist fastens roses to a headband and puts the finishing touches on a flowering branch. An empty bottle of Jim Beam lays on the floor — presumably just another found object with which to make a prop.

This is where the final preparations are being made for the Saturday production of “Ash Tree,” an unorthodox play dealing with themes of childhood and loss, said Abe Jallad, the producer of the show.

“What the play capitalizes on is showing loss in all of its forms, from losing a toy to losing something that’s more tangible; something that’s more living, something that’s more meaningful,” he said.

Following the story of three young sisters who have lost their mother, the play is based on the playwright Georgina Escobar’s childhood hardships, and she said she loves this kind of writing process.

“I was basically taking the experience and dramatizing it and playing with the elements of fantasy and the hypnotic journey,” she said. “I’m in love with stories. I’ve always been a storyteller before, and the theater was, from an early age, the place where I felt most comfortable. I feel like this dramatic writing is the place where my creative input goes beyond just the page.”

Escobar has an master’s in dramatic writing from UNM, and she wrote “Ash Tree” while in graduate school.

New York-based actress Mindy Leanse said she was drawn to “Ash Tree” because of Escobar’s gift with language in expressing the fantastical elements of story.

“I think Georgina’s writing is really spectacular. She’s got such a knack for dialogue, and what I think this play does is suspend your imagination and believability,” Leanse said. “A lot of times in contemporary theater, it’s about reality all the time, but this is a beautiful blend of reality and imagination, and I think she really plays with the magic of the world.”

For example, Jallad said one of the characters is a garden gnome who is more like a spider, and the ash tree where the mother’s ashes are placed is a portal between reality and fantasy.

Although the play deals primarily with children’s perspectives of the world, Escobar said “Ash Tree” is not just for young audiences — the play has different messages for different generations.

“I would really love to have the adults in the audience walk away with a feeling of their inner child being awakened, and the children in the audience feel the adult part of them bringing consciousness to things like loss,” she said. “Imagination and believing and theater can be the place for healing.”

Jallad said physical age was a negligible factor in relating to the play’s themes, because it offers a unique experience for each viewer.

“More than anything it’s theater for the young of heart, and I think that’s something you can’t qualify with years,” he said.

“It’s something you have to feel in your heart of hearts. It’s a very profound script, but the simplicity lies in the elegance that anyone can understand it, from a 5-year-old to a 55-year-old.”

While the play is accessible to a young audience, Leanse said Escobar didn’t shy away from the more melancholic elements of life when writing it.

“The moral of the story is that life has to go on,” Leanse said. “No matter what happens you have to take it and go on with your life, and it’s a hard lesson, but I think she has illustrated it well. And I think it’s really important for kids to see that everything doesn’t always happen the way it does in a fairy tale.”

As an actress, Leanse, 23 years old, said the relationship between childhood and adulthood is played out within her own personal portrayal of her character, a 7-year-old child.

“I’m a woman now, so I’ve got this woman’s body, and I’ve had to fill myself into the body, so now it’s like reverting back,” Leanse said. “It’s challenging. I think the physicality is the hardest thing for me.”

The play is not only unorthodox in its portrayal of youth, but also in the more technical aspects of production. Although it is supported by multiple theater groups around Albuquerque, the show has absolutely no funding; the actors were given about 25 total hours of rehearsal time, and the ‘stage’ is an outdoor courtyard between the Student Health Center and Mesa Vista Hall.

“This is the Rubik’s Cube of productions, really,” Escobar said.

“It has all the colors, and we’ve been twisting that cube trying to mesh the colors, and we’re getting there, and we’re doing well, but it’s not customary.”

Jallad said that although this production of “Ash Tree” is unique, theater in general has the unifying quality of a powerful mode of expression.

“If we can go to places where people themselves are scared to go, whether it be an imaginary place or an emotional place, if we as artists have the nerve to go there, then I think emotionally speaking our profession is justified, because we can go to those places where maybe it hurts or go to those places where maybe it’s lovely, lovelier than we’ve ever imagined before,” Jallad said.
Still, he said monetary compensation doesn’t matter.

“I’m paid in lots and lots of emotional satisfaction, and that’s definitely the currency of choice,” he said

“Ash Tree”
Saturday, 5:30 p.m.
Sunday, 2:30 p.m.
Oct. 1, 5:30 p.m.
Oct. 2, 2:30 p.m.
Mesa Vista Courtyard
Admission: Free