The Syringa Tree: A Guide for Educators

A guide for EducatorsPlay by Pamela Gien / Guide by One Wood Productions

ONE WOODp r o d u c t i o n s

Contents

About the Play , Synopsis 1

Characters 3

Notes from the Playwright 5

Themes of the Play 9

Questions & Activities 16

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About the PlayThe Syringa Tree is a story of an abiding love between two families, one black, one white, and the two children born into their shared household in early 1960’s South Africa. Seen first through the eyes of a child, six-year-old Elizabeth tries to make

sense of the chaos, magic and darkness of her experience. The story of these families’ destinies spans four generations from early apartheid to present-day free South Africa. Performed as originally conceived, all 24 characters are portrayed by one actress.

Synopsis1963. Elizabeth Grace is six years old. She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa with her parents, her younger brother and their family servants. She loves to swing from the branches of the Syringa tree in her back yard, to dance and sing, and to play with her nanny Salamina.

Salamina is pregnant, but her baby has to be kept a secret, for only Salamina has the proper pass to stay in a white district. If anybody finds out, particularly their next- door neighbor, who is a Dominee in the Dutch Reformed Church, the police would take the baby back to the township.

Elizabeth is allowed to witness the birth, a little girl named Moliseng Elessebett Mashlope, who is quickly taught to be quiet and hide from strangers.

Sometimes late at night Elizabeth creeps out to the garden, where the household servants gather to eat around a fire, singing and drumming the traditional songs, the forbidden songs, that nurture within her a strong connection to the land. As Elizabeth grows older, however, she gains a greater understanding of the troubles of her country.

A series of incidents underscores the divisions in South Africa: one of her father’s patients threatens to phone the police when he treats a little black boy in his examining room; her mother has a humiliating encounter with the Dominee that speaks to the centuries-old conflict between the English and Afrikaner; one of the family servants asks Eugenie when she will return to her own country; and Loeska is forbidden to play with Elizabeth after Moliseng is accidentally seen by the Dominee.

The Syringa Tree

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• • •

Moliseng then disappears from the hospital after she falls ill during a visit to the township. Dr. Grace is working, so Eugenie has their driver take her into the township so that she can check the hospital herself. Elizabeth is terrified that her mother doesn’t have the proper papers, so she stows away in the car and refuses to get out when she is discovered. There is no sign of Moliseng at the hospital, however, and it’s not until two days later that a colleague of Dr. Grace’s calls with the news that Moliseng may be at another hospital. Elizabeth panics because now her father is going into the forbidden area. When he returns with Moliseng, she has fallen asleep on the kitchen step, surrounded by the empty wrappers of sweets she was saving for Moliseng.

Moliseng has barely recovered when the Grace family is hit by further tragedy. A freedom fighter, crossing over the border into the northern Transvaal from Rhodesia, has attacked the farm belonging to Eugenie’s parents, killing her father and injuring her mother. When they return from the funeral, Salamina and Moliseng are gone, for Salamina is too ashamed about what happened to face them. Still, Elizabeth never forgets Salamina and her father never stops looking for her.

• • •

Years later, when she is at university, Elizabeth discovers an unauthorized list of the children killed in the 1976 Soweto student uprisings and sees Moliseng’s name. She and her brother John try to get into Soweto before the police close down the roads. They confirm that Moliseng is dead, protesting for better education, defying the police with only a brick against bullets. She makes John promise never to tell their parents and swears she will leave South Africa and never return.

Years pass and Elizabeth is married and living in America with her husband Andrew and baby George, named for her slain grandfather. They live in Pasadena, where she has her own berry tree and swing in the back yard. Apartheid is over and there is no longer any reason to stay away, particularly when her father calls to say that he has found Salamina, working for a family just down the road. Their reunion is awkward at first and Salamina walks away, overwhelmed. Elizabeth follows and finds her under the oak trees, and though Elizabeth is unable to articulate her continued grief for Moliseng, Salamina is finally able to comfort her.

The Syringa Tree / Synopsis

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The Characters

ELIZABETH GRACE6 to adulthood, English South African (white)

DR. ISAAC GRACElate 30s to 70, Elizabeth’s father

EUGENIE GRACEearly 30s, Elizabeth’s mother

GRANNY ELIZABETHearly 70s

GRANDPA GEORGE82

SERGEANT POTGIETERPolice Officer

DOMINEE HATTINGH52, Dutch Reformed Minister & Grace family neighbor (Afrikaans)

ZEPHYRLate 60s, Hattingh family gardener

PIETROSGrace family help (Sotho)

PETER MOMBADI40s, Grace family driver

DUBIKESalamina’s very old cousin

LOESKA (LUCIA) HATTINGH8, Elizabeth’s friend next door, Dominee Hattingh’s daughter

ELIZABETH GRACE6 to adulthood, English South African (white)

DR. ISAAC GRACElate 30s to 70, Elizabeth’s father

EUGENIE GRACEearly 30s, Elizabeth’s mother

GRANNY ELIZABETHearly 70s

GRANDPA GEORGE82

SARGEANT POTGIETERPolice Officer

DOMINEE HATTINGH52, Dutch Reformed Minister & Grace family neighbor (Afrikaans)

ZEPHYRLate 60s, Hattingh family gardener

PIETROSGrace family help (Sotho)

PETER MOMBADI40s, Grace family driver

DUBIKESalamina’s very old cousin

LOESKA (LUCIA) HATTINGH8, Elizabeth’s friend next door, Dominee Hattingh’s daughter

MABALELDr. Grace’s skeleton/tiny black girl

FATHER MONTFORDCatholic Priest

GEORGEElizabeth’s baby

ANDREWElizabeth’s American husband

MRS. BIGGSspry for her 70s

JOHN GRACEinfant to adult, Elizabeth’s baby brother

SALAMINA MASHLOPE39, Grace family maid, nanny to Elizabeth (Xhosa)

MOLISENG ELESSEBETT (ELIZA-BETH) MASHLOPEbirth to 14, Salamina’s child

MATRON LANNINGBaragwanath hospital matron

YOUNG DOCTORat Baragwanath hospital

IRIS KGOBANE19, nanny to Elizabeth’s new baby brother, John

MABALELDr. Grace’s skeleton/tiny black girl

FATHER MONTFORDCatholic Priest

GEORGEElizabeth’s baby

ANDREWElizabeth’s American husband

MRS. BIGGSspry for her 70s

JOHN GRACEinfant to adult, Elizabeth’s baby brother

SALAMINA MASHLOPE39, Grace family maid, nanny to Elizabeth (Xhosa)

MOLISENG ELESSEBETT (ELIZA-BETH) MASHLOPEbirth to 14, Salamina’s child

MATRON LANNINGBaragwanath hospital matron

YOUNG DOCTORat Baragwanath hospital

IRIS KGOBANE19, nanny to Elizabeth’s new baby brother, John

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“ I never imagined I would write The Syringa Tree and I never imagined I would write about South Africa, the paradise lost into which I was born. ”The play began in an acting class taught by Larry Moss when he said, “Turn to the person next to you and tell them a story.” Without warning, the image of an attack on my grandparents’ farm, Clova, came roaring into my mind. I had not thought about it for decades. We never discussed it. Clova was lost to us, and I was never taken back to what had been the simple but idyllic place of my childhood holidays. I quickly tried to think of something else to tell when he said to the class, “Don’t censor whatever it is that came into your minds. Tell that story. It will choose you.” I tried to make sense of the murky images and began to mouth the words. The second part of the exercise was to stage the story we had just told. I stood there trembling as though I had an earthquake in my body. I felt terribly vulnerable dealing with my own life. At the end of it, Larry said to me, “You have to write this.”

I had no idea at first what I was writing. I wrote with fear, grief and shame but also with love, joy and a well of remembrance.

At first I wrote autobiographically. And then I began to love the freedom of combining those events with the poetry of language and imagery. It developed as a more fictional story, deeply invested with aspects of my life. I chose names of people I loved and who inspired me, but with the exception of the grandparents, whom I have depicted with the most accuracy my young memory at the time allows, all the other characters are built out of inspiration and imagination. The family who lived next door to us, for example, was indeed that of a Dominee but a man very different than the one depicted here, a man I remember as humane and kind, and his daughters were my sweet and first friends. The families depicted here are fictional, and because the play is so personal, I want to make that distinction clear. Another example is the character of Salamina who was inspired by several women who took care of me. They were of different origins, some Sotho, some Xhosa or Zulu, and I’ve tried as much as possible to accurately reflect tribal differences in the language, but some of the sounds were so strong and poetic in my memory that I wanted to include them. The coming together of it is the mystery. I wrote it, never imagining the journey I was embarking on.

The Syringa Tree was originally performed by one actor, but it will be exciting to see it performed by any variation, from just

Notes from the PlaywrightPamela Gien

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two or several actors doubling roles, to as many actors as there are characters in the play. It provides opportunities for unique and inventive staging in that it is performed on a bare stage, with a swing, and an imaginary tree. This is enormously important, as it allows the tree, and the journey of the play, to exist powerfully in the imagination of the audience. The audience becomes an imperative and active participant when their imagination is called upon in this way.

Similarly, there should be no props. In the original workshops we experienced the excitement of creating vivid, evocative images through the use of lighting, sound and language on a bare stage. A testament to the gift of this decision, by director Larry Moss, is the multitude of letters we received from audiences saying they “went” there, they “saw, felt and heard South Africa.” The bare stage may seem daunting at first, but trusting the imagination of the audience has been deeply gratifying, and many say they create their own inner pictures, the way one does in reading a novel. Of course, we were immensely indebted to our gifted lighting, set and sound designers for their contributions to this idea.

When performed by a single actor, certain principles are useful. The illusion of the tree is simply created by the actor standing at, or on, the swing, creating its height

and expanse visually. Whenever Elizabeth disappears up into her tree, scrambling up onto the swing will create that illusion, especially when it is quickly followed by the next character standing at the side of the swing speaking up to her. Elizabeth comes down from the tree by simply scrambling over the swing from upstage to the downstage side, as if that were her last rung in climbing down from its branches.

The actor in a solo performance of the play never leaves the stage. Stage directions like “Elizabeth races off” or “Eugenie wanders away towards the house” never mean that the actor physically leaves the stage but are simply there for the creation of the staging. The play should be performed in a continuous flow, like a dance, each scene melting into the next, but each with its own dynamic. One character leaving at the end of a scene transforms seamlessly into the next character in the following scene.

Attention to dialects is imperative. The many different South African dialects include a standard “English South African” for the Grace family, with Eugenie slightly more British; various black dialects for Salamina, Iris, Zephyr, Peter, Dubike, Pietros and Moliseng, particularly Sotho, Xhosa and Zulu; and a heavy Afrikaans accent for Loeska and the Dominee. Sergeant Pogieter and the police might be heavier accents, while Matron Lanning and

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the doctor might be softer. Father Montford might have a slightly Irish sound.

Vocal delineation among characters, though variations in pitch and tone, give each a distinct voice. These are further assisted by chosen psychological gestures for each character. These choices become crucial in the audiences’ ability to quickly identify one from the other. As there are no costume changes, and no props, the actor has to convey each character with speed and depth, and the psychological gesture functions as an invaluable short hand.

Offered purely as a guide, some examples of psychological gesture in the original production are:

• Elizabeth as a child, physically hyperactive; her feet never stop in the dance of inner distress; her legs and body stiffen with fear, her arms stretched out, with hands patting down the air methodically as if to keep everything in place. It is the physical manifestation of her inner fear, trying to keep everyone safe.

• Eugenie’s gesture was the right hand

delicately playing with her right earring, while the left was held across her waist, containing or protecting her body. The gentle fingering of the earring has to do with her position in the house, her social standing, her ladylike quality and her anxiety, while the arm crossed around herself is the beginning of her closing herself away from the world.

• Salamina’s physicality is robust, her warm body seemingly part of the rich earth around her. She is weighted, powerful, sensual and strong, in contrast to the Salamina at the end, more vulnerable after a life of physical labor and loss. Her voice should be full and resonant. Salamina and Zephyr embody a powerful expression of the rhythms of Africa. A common gesture is the quick double clapping of hands, both palms up, in a traditional sign of gratitude. Another is the reference to any child. This is never done with palm down but the palm up, hand at the height of the child. The palm is left open and up to allow for the child to grow and flourish.


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• Sergeant Potgieter is created instantly by the removal of his cap and the wiping of his brow in the heat.

• Loeska points in bossy authority, fingers covered in red trumpet flowers.

• Moliseng, because of her very young age, refers to herself by pointing to herself, and when ordered to hide away, instantly stands dead still and covers her eyes and forehead with both hands, as if to disappear.

One aspect I believe to be enormously important to the telling of this story is the tone of Elizabeth’s narration. Elizabeth never “comments” or brings any political awareness to her narration. She is the voice of an innocent, telling us simply what she sees. She is a witness, and her words are her simple way of trying to make sense of what she sees. There is never a value judgment, only fear, matter-of-fact observation, excitement, curiosity, joy, the simple feelings of a child.

For example, the line “To get me ready for the Dominee, all my brown runs down in rivers, into the ground again, to make me nice and shiny and clean and white again...” is a simple laundry list of what is required when the Dominee comes to visit. If it has

any spin on it, good or bad, her innocence is lost. Another example is, “Pietros is much blacker than Iris, but not as black as Salamina...” This is the simple curiosity of the child. There should be no loading it emotionally, politically, good, bad or any other way. It’s a curios and interesting fact.

This note is not intended to impose on any desired line reading but given in the hope that the audience will supply their own thoughts evocative of so much, our own memories of the womb, the racing beat of fear, the pounding in excitement and the haunting sound of the African drums, beating from time immemorial.

The Syringa Tree has been the most profound and surprising gift of my life. It has called me to be the best of myself as a person and as an artist. Carried in this story are my deepest feelings about a hauntingly beautiful place caught in sorrow. It is also a story filled with joy and wishes. Some might come true.

– Pamela Gien from The Syringa Tree: A Play, (2001)


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APARTHEID: Separateness (Afrikaans)

A policy implemented by South Africa’s National Party government (1948-94) to maintain separate development of government-demarcated racial groups.

The word “apartheid” is derived from an Afrikaans word meaning “apartness”. Although the play does explore the impact of the official laws of racial segregation in South Africa (as created in 1950 by the South African parliament with the Population Registry Act), the play also explores the wider scope of “apartness.”

Mrs. Grace lives “apart” from her husband—stranded on the farm while Mr. Grace can go out and work and connect to people. She is isolated in South Africa, whose policies she does not agree with, but does not have the avenues to do anything about her feelings. Elizabeth’s grandparents

live “apart” from the rest of the country, alone on a rural outpost where they are free to live according to their own morals but also left horribly vulnerable to violent attack. Salamina runs away from the Grace household after the death of Grandpa George and goes to work, unnoticed by the family even though they search for her, just down the road at a tea room—evidence of how people can easily live “apart” in this divided country. And then, finally, there is Elizabeth who tries to go to America so she can live apart from the horrors of South Africa—but she can never sever the ties she feels and is forced to return. All of these are examples of how the official laws of apartheid insinuated itself in countless ways to form an insidious culture of “apartness.”

Apartheid, meaning a policy set up to segregate the white population from other races, was established to gain full control over white economic and social systems by separating other races from them. This lead to the “Grand Apartheid” in the 1960s which greatly affected the South African population.

Themes of the Play

1948

Shortly after World War II, the National Party came to power and racial discrimination laws were enforced to prohibit the amalgamation between whites and non-whites. Marriages between non-whites and whites were banned and white-only jobs were established.

1950

All South Africans were classified into three categories: white, black (African), or coloured (mixed descent) which included those of Indian and Asian descent due to the Population Registration Act. Many things would affect how a person was classified including habits, education and speech. All blacks were required to carry a passbook which contained fingerprints, photos and access to non-black areas.

1951

The government enacted the Bantu Authorities Act. Each African was assigned to an independent state based on the person’s record of origin (homeland). Africans were no longer able to vote and lost their citizenship in South Africa. This also meant that they no longer had any rights under the South African Parliament. From 1976 – 1981 four of these homelands were created and denationalized nine million South Africans. Africans living in homelands required passports to enter South Africa even though it was their own country.

The Syringa Tree / Themes of the Play

Apartheid Timeline:

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1953

The government enforced strict laws, declaring a state of emergency. Severe penalties, including fines, imprisonment and beatings, were implemented under the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act to those who protested against the law. In 1960, a large group of blacks refused to carry their passes which were mandatory. The government declared a state of emergency lasting for 156 days. In the end 69 people died and 187 were wounded. This horrible event is known as the Sharpeville Massacre.

1976

An urban area in the city of Johannesburg called Soweto, had riots break out in black townships. In 1983 a group was formed called the United Democratic Front to fight against apartheid. In 1984 there were more uprisings in black townships and the government declared a state of emergency which lasted until 1989. Thousands of people were tortured and died as a result. There were some who were imprisoned for life while others were sentenced to death or banished.

1994

Following negotiations, which began in 1990, the apartheid in South Africa officially comes to an end.


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Childhood InnocenceLike Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird, with Elizabeth in The Syringa Tree we see a world of social injustice through the eyes of a child. It is a view that is somewhat disturbing, as questions that haunt us— why has a neighbor’s worker had his fingertips cut off and how does he feel about being forced to sing to Elizabeth?—don’t even register to a child. But more so, we wish that childhood innocence were allowed to impact more of the world so that a young white girl befriending a young

black girl was a common act instead of an unknown act of bravery and courage. We are also allowed to see the crumbling of childhood innocence, as Elizabeth flees her homeland as the realities of South Africa’s cruelty are brought to the light of day. But innocence turns into hope, as Elizabeth eventually returns bringing berries in her hand as a gift to Salamina—connecting them both to the syringa tree of her childhood innocence.

Social ProtestMany forms of social protest are explored in The Syringa Tree. There is the outward protest of Moliseng facing down a police line in Soweto. But more frequently, we have covert acts of quiet protest and subversive behavior. The Graces conspire with Salamina to keep her unregistered child in their house. Dr. Grace, when he can, helps patients of all colors. Elizabeth’s grandparents provide clothing free of charge to their workers. All of these acts were acts of protest against a system that

told a population that they were not all the same. From Moliseng’s loud shouts to Mrs. Grace’s silent drive in the dark night, these were all actions that proclaimed a common humanity. The play itself mirrors this sentiment by having two actors play characters of various races and ages. The actor may be of one skin, but she shares a humanity with the world.


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South AfricaSouth Africa is located at the most southern tip on the continent of Africa. The country is known for its large quantity of natural resources including coal, iron, ore, manganese, tin, uranium, antimony, nickel, copper, vanadium, salt, natural gas and diamonds. South Africa is also the world’s largest producer of gold, platinum and chromium. The climate is usually mild, with sunny days and cool nights. South Africa’s only real natural hazard is prolonged droughts. Aboriginal people known as The Khoisan people have lived in South Africa for a millennia.

Black South Africans are said to have originated from a region known as the Great Lakes where white South Africans are said to be descendants of European migrations. In the 17th century, South Africa was colonized by the English and Dutch. Around the 1900s diamonds were discovered in South Africa which resulted in an invasion by European settlers and the Boer War. In the 1940s the Afrikaner National Party gained majority and independence from England. This led to the “Grand Apartheid” in the 1960s which greatly affected the South African population.

Water and LandThe connection between Elizabeth and the land is an almost visceral one and serves to tie the various elements of her story together. When she leaves South Africa, it is the smell, the sight, the feel of the land that tear at her memory. As she swings from her tree in the rain in Pasadena, she remembers the storms of her childhood and the smell of hot land soothed by the rain is as much an invitation to return as her father’s call.

Water, or the lack thereof, take on religious

significance in the conflict between the Graces and their next-door neighbors. On Sundays, the Dominee and his family visit the Grace’s to pray for rain. The Dominee says that the reason they have a drought is God’s vengeance for the English stirring up trouble with the blacks. He personalizes it even further by blaming the drought on the sins of “those among us who tempt the serpent in lipstick and short skirts,” a not very subtle dig against Eugenie. Elizabeth, mud-covered, is sent out back to be made


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presentable. Iris washes her with the hose (“a kind of joyous backyard baptism”). “To get me ready for the Dominee, all my brown runs down in rivers into the ground again, to make me nice and shiny and clean and white again.”

Water is politics as well. In a country defined by drought, those who have water are both lucky and wealthy. Those with neither luck nor money must carry jugs of water for miles on their heads. More specifically, water turns Elizabeth from brown to white, a river of shame washing

away colour and hope. When Clover is attacked Granny Elizabeth is running a bath, which overflows, creating a river of blood. This can also be seen as an allusion to the Battle of Blood River (December 16, 1838), a battle between Voortrekkers and AmaZulu warriors that resulted in 3000 AmaZulu casualties. The waters of the Ncome River ran red with blood, hence the name. Once an Afrikaans idealogical holiday, December 16 is now the Day of Reconciliation in South Africa.


Berries and TreesBerries and trees provide a sense of rebirth and return throughout The Syringa Tree. The tree itself is the central image of the play—a place of both comfort and refuge. It provides shade from the hot sun, a branch for Elizabeth to swing from, and a place of hiding from the police. When Moliseng goes missing from the hospital, Salamina waits for her return beneath the branches of the syringa tree, becoming covered by the berries dropping from the branches. When Moliseng is restored to her, the berries fly off her like confetti, nature’s celebration.

Zephyr tells Elizabeth “the spirits of our ancestors fly into the trees when they die...into the leaves and the berries and the

bark.” After Moliseng is killed, Elizabeth wonders if she has become part of the syringa tree, but the thought doesn’t give her the comfort she needs to heal.

Exiled by choice to America, Elizabeth finds a connection to her home through a tree in the backyard of her house in Pasadena. She builds a swing, just like the one she had as a child, for herself and her own baby. When Elizabeth returns to South Africa, she brings berries from her tree in America as a present to Salamina.

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HidingThe image of the Tokolosh, a feared demon somewhat similar to a brownie, establishes early the idea of concealment and revealing as a form of salvation. The tokolosh is short and squat; Salamina raises her bed on bricks so that he can’t reach her at night and steal her spirit. The upraised bed, solitary in its bricks is all that remains of Salamina when she leaves and hides from the Graces in her shame.

Hiding is connected to the atmosphere and mistrust that pervades South Africa at the beginning of the story. Over and over the invocation to take refuge and hide from the police is repeated: “into the granadilla

bushes, up into the Syringa tree, under Salamina’s bed.” But the fear is not confined to black South Africans caught after dark without a pass. When Eugenie takes the car into the townships to search for Moliseng, Elizabeth hides in the back seat, afraid to stay at home and afraid to go where she is not allowed. Moliseng, of course, has to hide away to avoid being taken back to the township. Being seen means danger, but ultimately her refusal to hide away causes her to take a stand in Soweto. While that leads to her death, it also leads to an unveiling of the situation in South Africa to the international community and the first step towards ending apartheid.

SeparationApartheid is by its very definition separation. But the idea of separateness is not confined to race. The Graces are divided from their neighbors by both religion and ancestry. As their differing political and social beliefs cause a greater rift between the Graces and the Dominee’s family, their separation is symbolized by the fence between their properties keeping Elizabeth and Loeska apart. When Dr. Grace refuses to treat black and white patients in separate rooms, he runs the risk of prosecution and alienation within his community.

The Graces are also separated from their servants economically, ethnically and racially, while the servants themselves are distinguished by the shade of their skin and their various tribes. Pietros asks Eugeneie when she is going back to her own country,

believing that because she is of English ancestry, her country is England, not South Africa.

Hugh MacLennan wrote of the “Two Solitudes” in Canada – two races, English and French, within one nation, each with its own legend and ideas of what a nation should be. There are many different solitudes in South Africa and within The Syringa Tree – English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, white, black, Jewish, Dutch Reformed, servant and master – all of whom have a stake in South Africa and a differing view of their society.

Finally, unable to live within the system, Elizabeth leaves South Africa and is separated physically from her family and home.


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Bantu-speaking South Africans

Cape of Good Hope

Angola

West Africa

Xhosa

Great Trek Afrikaners

Zulu

Dingaan

Battle of Blood River Transvaal

Orange Free State

Anglo-Boer Wars

Union of South Africa

South African Native National Congress/ African National Congress (ANC)

National Party (South Africa) Sharpeville

Massacre Soweto

Botha

South African Council of Churches United

Democratic Front Desmond Tutu

Inkatha

President F.W. de Klerk

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Key Terms

Listed below are key terms in the history of South Africa. Divide the class into small groups and have each group research three of the words and report their findings to the rest of the class.

Questions & Activities

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Segregation Exercise

This is a great activity to give your students an understanding of segregation. Separate the students into two groups as they arrive in the classroom. One group should consist of all of the students with brown, green or hazel eyes and the other group those students with blue eyes. The students with brown, green or hazel eyes should be told to sit on the floor while the blue eyed students sit in chairs. While explaining the exercise the teacher should only speak and make eye contact with those students sitting in the chairs.

Explain to the students with blue eyes that they are only allowed to make eye contact with those students in their group while the other group is allowed to make eye contact with anyone in the room. Have all students walk around the classroom for five minutes in this manner.

Once the five minutes is up, explain to the students how you separated them into the two groups and get their feedback about the exercise.

Encourage students from both groups to share any feelings or thoughts they experienced during the exercise:

The Syringa Tree / Questions & Activities

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Additional Questions

1. Has there ever been a time when you were judged because of your physical appearance? If so, explain how this made you feel and how it affected you.

2. The Syringa Tree has many different characters throughout the story but only has one actor to represent all of these characters. Why do you think the playwright chose to only have one actor on stage?

3. Give some examples of how the actor differentiated between characters. Things to consider are their posture, voice and actions.

4. Nelson Mandela is a very important man in not only Africa, but also in history. Research who he is and his life. Explain how he is related to Apartheid in South Africa.


Questions continued on back:

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5. Throughout history there have been many incidents where different races have been discriminated against due to their physical appearance. List some major events that took place to help stop and fight racial discrimination.

6. Pick a scene from another play that incorporates more than three characters. Present the scene to your class, changing and transforming into the characters in the scene. Pick one movement or gesture to represent each character that you use to differentiate between characters.

7. Do you feel that racial discrimination still exists throughout the world today? If so, where? What do you think you could do to help stop racial discrimination?

8. The story of The Syringa Tree unfolds through the eyes of a young girl, Elizabeth. Why do you think the playwright chose to tell the story from Elizabeth’s point of view? Do you think the story would have been as affective if told by an adult who was also experiencing the apartheid? Explain.




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Documents

The Syringa Tree: A Guide for Educators