There is often the assumption when a child is given a part in a school play that if they are in the position of acting as a tree, it is simply to include that child in the experience of being onstage.

Think about this.

I know when I look at trees, they are not still or unmoving, unless there is no wind. They do not stay exactly the same colour, unless there is no sunlight or rain. They do not stay the same size unless they have been pulled from the ground.

One might get a particularly precocious child who may ask, ‘If I am a tree, then what kind of tree am I?’

The teacher may respond, ‘You are simply a tree.’

Simply a tree? What does this mean? How does one simply be a tree, when there are so many to choose from? But, the child, if they decide to be less argumentative than usual, may think to themselves, ‘Okay then, I am “simply a tree”.’ And they will look at a tree and see how its branches sway with a breeze, how its leaves may shiver and shake, how, depending on what type of tree it is in the child’s mind, it might lose a leaf occasionally or perhaps all at once.

The teacher, depending on how tired or not they are, may look upon this child and think to themselves, ‘This is a wonderful idea. Why have just one tree in my play, when I can have an entire grove of trees that change with the seasons, that give us the idea of light and movement, seasons and weather, simply by being trees. I can work with this. I will make this play both magical and realistic, simply by adding trees.’

Many years later, someone may come across this child or these children as adults and ask them, ‘Did you have experience in acting as a child?’ and the former child or children may answer with, ‘Yes, I was a tree in a school play once.’

It is the intelligent and thoughtful person who hears this response and may think to themselves, ‘This person played the part of a tree. I am really quite envious.’

‘How wonderful it must have been to be a tree,’ the person might respond.

Being a tree is a wonderful thing indeed. One may not use their voice as others use their voices. One may not be moving around as others move around, but one is still expressing things through movement, however small, and through language, however different.

All this from simply being a tree.