By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

In African myth, the spirits pass to the leaves of the syringa tree, which flowers in delicate starbursts.

Playwright Pamela Gien sees it as a place of refuge in her powerful, semiautobiographical one-woman play The Syringa Tree, an Obie Award winner for best play. It's having its regional premiere at Playhouse in the Park.

IF YOU GO

What: The Syringa Tree When: 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, through June 15 Where: Playhouse in the Park Shelterhouse, Eden Park Tickets: $37-$45. Any unreserved tickets are half-price day of show purchased at the Playhouse box office between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. (opening noon on Sundays.) 421-3888.

The Syringa Tree spans more than four decades and four generations, from the 1960s to present-day South Africa. An actress (Stephanie Cozart and Shannon Koob alternate in the role) plays 24 characters - black, white, male, female, young, old - through the course of the drama, starting with little Lizzie.

Lizzie likes the swing that hangs from the syringa tree in her back yard. Those branches are also a good hiding place for black men being hunted by the police.

According to Syringa director Michael Haney, Gien is once removed from Lizzie.

She grew up a privileged child on her grandparents' South African farm estate with a household of black servants. She has said that she knew things that were not right were going on around her in a world that seemed, on the surface, idyllic.

She feared for her physician father, who didn't hold with apartheid policy. From her bedroom window, she watched police beat blacks. When she was 10, a Rhodesian rebel fatally stabbed her grandfather. Her family left the farm forever.

Decades later, when actress Gien decided to try writing for the stage, she was advised to write about "the thing you're most frightened of."

What she delivers, says Haney, "is a type of storytelling we (Americans) aren't familiar with."

Magical realism is an outgrowth of native cultures on every continent, especially strong in South America, Australia and South Africa, Haney observes. "That mysticism infiltrates all of society."

Syringa Tree draws from Gien's experiences but expands to include the different perspectives and recollections of everyone in the large, extended farm family.

"The play sort of sneaks up on you," says Haney. "After you've seen it, you feel like you've lived a lifetime in South Africa."

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com