Description

A man is caught pouring motor oil around the base of a tree to kill it (make it easier to uproot)…clearing the area for a parking lot.

Character Breakdown

1 Men, 1 Women

History

Commissioned by The Drilling Company for Connections

Productions

Access Theater, That Damn Dykstra (the boxed set) (NYC) Margarett Perry, Director

78 th Street Theatre Lab, The Drilling Co.’s Connections (NYC) Richard Harden, Director

Press

“( Dykstra’s) people are both tortuously rational and obsessively doting, and he often builds their conjectures into absurd and hilarious dimensions. An early sequence, pitting a would-be environmentalist against an apparently insensitive lout, even brings to mind Shakespeare's cunning clown scenes; in amicable but competitive verbal sparring, the jester twists his challenger's words and triumphs.”

Tom Sellar, The Village Voice

“an ingenious way of showing you that things are not always as they seem. As the lights rise, we see a solitary birch tree growing out of a planter and a redneck (Patrick Frederic) pouring motor oil around its base. A concerned passerby (Vickie Tanner ) gets an earful when she challenges him as to what he's doing. During the course of their argument, we find that the redneck is charged with removing the tree to put up a parking lot. By pouring motor oil around it's base, it will be easier on him to pull out all the roots of the tree, even though he knows that the soil will be contaminated by the oil. As their argument continues, more secrets unravel to the delight of the audience, about environmentalists, SUV gas consumption, and getting involved to change things.”

Jack Quinn, TheatreScene.net

“Dealing with a weighty issue like the ecological cruelty of people toward the earth can be difficult to pull off without lecturing to the audience, but Dykstra's concept and Frederic's performance are thoroughly enjoyable.”

Quin Chia, Washington Square News

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