How about..... don't move the trees. Leave them there. A few years ago (before digital cameras, sorry, no pics!) I did an H&G in a similar situation. New England S-Stock, historical
stage, no wings, no flys, (except what I could rig with hardware store pulleys), no
nail to floor.
Only had 4 trees set against the
cyc. All the trees were 2D cut outs. Scary faces with eyes, noses and gaping mouths were cut out and backed with saturated
gel, orange for the eyes with pupils painted on the
gel and mixes of red and blue and green for the mouths. The entire tree was then covered with very light weight
muslin and scene painted. When front lit, the trees looked solid. Back lit and the faces appeared magically and menacing.
The
base unit was a straight trunk, no limbs, with the top cut off and jagged kinda like a Bart Simpson hair cut. The trunks could lean left/right or straight, pull
cord from the side. Each tree had two "arms" with long twig like hands and fingers that were attached on a pivot pin on the back. The arms were attached to a 1/8" cable, a few pulleys and operated off
stage. For the forest scenes the trunks leaned about 10 degrees inward to
stage center and the limbs/arms were spread out to look like menacing grasping arms. For the Witch's
house, The trunks leaned about 5 degrees out from center and the arms folded in back out of sight. Ninja
stage hands brought in two 8' candy canes that
Velcro'd to the center trunks and a Styrofoam cut out roof
unit rigged on light weight temporary pulleys and light weight
line, flew in. The candy canes became the side walls "supporting" the roof of the witches
house. Everything else was indicated by furniture or
props, no massive scenic
unit or "
house". Scene change took about 5/10 seconds and the actors and ninja
stage hands finished the furniture and
props under dialogue, so it all moved very smooth, quick and continuous from scene to scene. H&G played in daily rotating rep with the main stag show, "The Miser". So, except for the roof which could simply
fly out of sight, had to come and go daily.
Oh, and just for fun, the witch was our
headliner equity leading man, UN-credited, in drag. He was a hoot!!!