STAGE REVIEW : Obsession, Withheld Passion Fill ‘Queen Magnolia’

They do exist--these ancient trees that seem to hold a spirit, an essence, in their towering branches and mammoth trunks. Some of us have passed close enough to almost hear the sound of a voice whispering through some hole in the tree’s reality.

The Tree (Cornelia Kiss, Tomas Voth) in Nadine van der Velde’s “Queen Magnolia,” at Center Films Studio, does more than whisper, though it does enough of that. It cackles, it sings, it dances. It pervades the atmosphere that hangs limply about the Cajun shack on Voth’s evocative, sprawling Mississippi Delta set, and it invades the tragic lives of Dennis (Jeffrey Nordling) and his sister Isabelle (Lisa Moncure) like a terrible conscience.

The plot of this piece, produced by the Wilton Project, is not unusual: a romantic triangle in which two of the points are the brother and sister. The third is a stranger (Richard Yniguez) who threatens to break apart their overpowering love, inadvertently triggering the events foreshadowed by the whisperings from the Tree. The shape of the work is what’s important here, along with powerful performances and Bernard White’s gutsy direction, fragrant with the damp aroma of Cajun country and dark spice in the souls of its inhabitants.

Images reverberate and echo in Van der Velde’s tone poem, whose subject is obsession and the bondage of withheld passion. Young bodies vibrating in first incestuous abandon, the desperation of times apart, the creeping realization of doom and evil, all are shadowy images that fall over the clearing between the Tree and the shack. But they can’t hide Dennis and Isabelle’s headlong flight toward their destiny, even from the full moon that sometimes glows in the distance and sometimes seems to overpower the setting and these classically tragic figures.

“Queen Magnolia” is an impressive piece of writing that catches not only the heavy beating of the characters’ hearts, but the flavor of the locale. That flavor is also heard in impeccably spoken dialects and in the stunning original music and soundtrack of O-Lan Jones. Cliff Vick’s moody, heat-drenched lighting, just-right costumes by Susannah Blinkoff and Elizabeth Iannaci, and Hector Mercado’s often mystical and sometimes giddy choreography for the Tree contribute much to the ensemble feel of the production.

* “Queen Magnolia,” Center Films Studio, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 9 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends July 19. $10; (213) 469-6833. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.