The Syringa Tree Pamela Gein  | Jungle Theater - 2008  | Photos: Michal Daniel

Agony and love fill a one-woman show at the Jungle           - Minneapolis Star Tribune

“There are occasions when a single, quiet moment defines a play; all the dramatic intent, plot swings, and emotional turmoil crystallized in a gesture, a look, a word of dialogue.  Playwright Pamela Gien sets up such a instance in her one-woman show, and actor Sarah Agnew nails it with devastating understatement in her performance at the Jungle Theater...  Director Joel Sass collaborates with his designers to give the Jungle production a palpable, keen sense of place.  Small but important accents pop up.  Big, sweeping gestures such as Agnew’s swinging recklessly across the stage on a rope swing translate in meanings deeper than words...  A stunning achievement in storytelling...A beautifully human epic.”

Climb the Jungle’s compelling Syringa Tree        -  Talking Broadway

“Under Joel Sass’s sensitive direction, everything is working in this beautifully understated production...In an extraordinary performance, gifted Sarah Agnew plays six-year-old Elizabeth Grace and the many people who are part of her family life in the claustrophobic, fear-riddled world of Apartheid-era South Africa...” 

A luminous performance in Jungle’s Syringa Tree          - St. Paul Pioneer Press

“...In Agnew’s deft performance, given razor-sharp focus by director Joel Sass, each of these 22 characters is rendered with a keen sense of clarity...  Dressed in a buff-colored shift and playing on Sass’ barren, baked-clay landscape of a set, Agnew has the ability to give equal measures of energy and heart to each of her characters; none seem shorthand versions or afterthoughts.  Most importantly, she and Sass are able to knit all of these disparate characters into a coherent narrative...a microcosmic, artfully rendered look at a shameful period in world history...”