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Red Rock Regional Theatre And Gallery
29th May BOOK NOW
After losing my father last year, and now contemplating the future of my frail mother, this powerful play really struck a chord with me. I noticed many in the audience who were equally moved, some even to tears lasting well after lights up. To be or not to be? To exist in a nursing home or to be 'let go'? That is the moral question facing the trio and ultimately the audience, who get to decide the ending of each performance. Even after the vote the audience were rivetted waiting to see how the final moments would play out. I couldn't help thinking of similarities between an Agatha Christie play where the secrecy of the ending has been crucial to its success. And like The Mousetrap I'm sure that audiences will continue to treasure Michael Gray Griffith's The Magnolia Tree for years to come.
~Jonathan Cox
Stage the play yourself
The Magnolia Tree
Set Suggestion: A well lived in living room.
Duration 70 minutes
Cast three: Two women one man.
A QC to do facilitate the Voting.
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Synopsis: The Magnolia Tree
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In the front yard of the family home stands a dying magnolia tree. It was Mum's favourite. In another time her three children used to hunt its branches for the singing cicadas that they could never find.
Mother now has Alzheimer's and as one single cicada still sings, her children have come back together to choose her a nursing home. But Jack has another idea. He wants them to let mum go tonight, and he has brought the means to do it.
Will he succeed in convincing them? Well that is up to you.
To date the Audience vote for the death end more often.
The Magnolia Tree has two endings and it will be you, the audience, via a secret vote who has the final say, but beware, despite being soft spoken Jack just might be the most dangerous character you've ever experienced, or then again, maybe he's a saint.
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Email us for details about staging it and royalties:
Michael Griffith’s brilliant and relatable story challenges societal views on ageing parents with mental illness. This emotive production identifies a family’s ongoing concern for their elderly mother suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Experience a reinvention of realism
Michael Griffiths has written a play that will cast your morality adrift in an exercise of humanity. Combining moments of black humour and powerful emotion you will be forced to answer
The Grim Reaper has never been so interesting or personal.
The Magnolia Tree exudes 70 minutes of tension, with years of family secrets finally coming to the surface. The three siblings are forced to confront their closeted thoughts and past actions with nothing left unsaid.
Playwright Michael Griffith has written a striking character-driven play filled with family secrets and fractured relationships, presenting them with an impossible bind. 4/5 stars
The Actors Tottie Goldsmith and Rohana Hayes hamming it up on the road.
