GREENSBORO – “The Well Tree,” an original storytelling musical illustrated by the moving scroll of a crankie was performed by Heartwood at the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro on the evening of November 7.
The trio of singers and instrumentalists were Willy Clemetson from Belfast, Maine, Heidi Wilson from Plainfield and Sarina Partridge from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Jennifer Jones of Walden created the very beautiful visuals on transparent papers in a box lighted from behind, which could be seen in sequence with the story line by turning the handles of vertical rollers on each side. The crankie was in some ways the ancestor of the modern cinema projector.
Clemetson, Wilson and Partridge originally got together at a songwriting workshop on Rabbit Island in Lake Superior in 2021 and conceived of this project.
The work follows the mythical journey of a great-great-grandmother named Ariel, which seems to draw some of its images from native American reverence for plants and animals from children’s stories where talking animals are common, from mystical experiences of a union with nature and from a celebration of the universal archetypes of trees and water, all combined with a deep concern about contemporary ecological changes.
Ariel comes from a family of tree cutters. Her adventure begins when a crow (designed by Erican Gillard) flies over and drops an oak acorn seed by her. It is the end of summer, the harvest season is in full tilt and there is a song of gratitude, sung with harmoniously blended voices by the three players, accompanying themselves on banjo, guitar, violin and drum, with the audience joining along in the chorus.
Then a great fog rolls in and makes everything very hazy, but worse, the rain stops falling. Fields become parched and wells go dry. Ariel sets out in the dense fog to try to find a spring, heading up a ridge. She comes across a large old tree, such trees having become scarce from her family’s lumbering, and she cuts it down with her axe. Further on she finds a magnetic borderstone in a cliff, which she hopes she can use as a compass to guide her home in the fog. The crow which has been following her returns several times, and she has conversations with it. She stumbles onto a patch of blackberries and feasts on those. Then she encounters in turn a snail, a bee and a snake and reaches dunes and the ocean.
Following intermission, she admires the shell and the windswept trees, which she talks to. Entering a small cavity on one of the trees, she is absorbed into it, feeling her own blood and the sap merging. Next she drops down to the roots of the tree and comes into a luminescent cave, which psychologically is an archetype for the unconscious. She meditates about her journey thus far, even having a conversation with her own reflection in some water on the floor of the cave. Two mysterious eyes held up on sticks appear and help Ariel escape from the cave back out into the world again. Using her borderstone compass, she finds her way home. She drops the borderstone into the empty well, which somehow ends the drought and makes the rain return again. Symbolically she plants the acorn seed that she has been carrying all this time as an offering to replace the tree that was cut, demonstrating the perpetual renewal of life. The singers end with the phrase, “May we pass these gifts on endlessly.”
The near capacity audience rose with a standing ovation in appreciation for this meaningful performance. Others involved in “The Well Tree” were Lily Salvia, helping make the crankie box, and Maura Gahan, supporting the choreography.
For more information about this group, go online at HeartwoodTrio.com or [email protected].
David K. Rodgers
David K. Rodgers is a writer, mason and card carrying dilettante, who dabbles and babbles in art. He has lived in East Craftsbury for the past 40 years.
