The play is set on the back porch of a New Zealand home and tells the story of a daughter returning home after 15 years' absence. The central relationship is between the mother, who has not achieved her life-long goals, and the daughter, who has experienced so much through her travels.[1]
The play won second prize in the Southland Centennial Playwriting Competition in 1956, however it was rejected by a number of New Zealand theatres.[1][2] It was subsequently purchased by a London agent and debuted in Bristol.[1] After it achieved success in England, the New Zealand Players, who had previously rejected it, toured forty North Island towns with it in 1959.[3] It was met with critical acclaim, The New Zealand Herald calling it "an adult, compelling and first-class piece of work".[4] It was published in 1960 by Whitcombe and Tombs with New Zealand Literary Fund support.[3]
Contemporary critics compared The Tree to Arthur Miller's style of playwriting, and particularly his 1947 play All My Sons, with its sparse dialogue and portrayal of a family under pressure.[1] It was also compared to New Zealand playwright Bruce Mason's The Pohutukawa Tree, with comment that Jones' text read "much more smoothly" than Mason's.[1]
1980s commentators on the play point out that the father's role is relatively insignificant, and that other of Jones' works also show strong female lead characters, although this gender-based analysis may not have been apparent to audiences in the 1950s.[3]
The play is recommended reading for drama papers at the University of Auckland,[5] and was included in a Landmark New Zealand Play Reading Series in 2012.[4]