'Apple Season': In an orchard, escaping the trauma of the past * Oregon ArtsWatch

"The play, onstage at Southeast Portland's 21ten Theatre, takes place in the orchard of Lissie and Roger's childhood home in rural Oregon, which they fled as teens 25 years before. Returning for their father's funeral, Lissie (Paulina Jaeger-Rosete) is visited by Billy (Michael Heidingsfelder), someone she briefly knew in high school. When Billy offers to buy the property, memories of her painful childhood come back to her."

"In director Francisco Garcia's skillful hands, the story smoothly travels between the past and present, using lights, the soft sound of wind chimes (designed by Daye Thomas, who has created a sort of subtle score for the play), and small costume changes to signify when the story is slipping into one of Lizzie's memories. The first of these slips is terrifying."

"Together, the two siblings speak in soft Spanish, a secret language that presumably their white father doesn't know, which makes the fact that we see little of the adult Lissie and Roger onstage together in later scenes all the more moving. They may have run away from home, but trauma has long, winding roots that have kept the siblings apart. Further evidence of their isolation comes in their separate scenes with Billy, where neither sibling can trust him enough to talk truthfully about their past."

The play unfolds in an apple orchard outside rural Oregon where siblings Lissie and Roger return after 25 years for their father's funeral. Lissie is visited by Billy, an old high-school acquaintance whose offer to buy the property triggers painful memories. The production shifts fluidly between past and present using lighting, wind-chime sounds by Daye Thomas, and small costume changes to mark memory slippages. Young Lissie and Roger hide in a tree during a nighttime episode of gunshots, footsteps, and their father's drunken cursing. The siblings share a soft Spanish secret language, and long-standing trauma has kept them emotionally distant. Separate scenes with Billy reveal mistrust and unresolved pain.

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