Fresh Takes Play Reading - Native Gardens by Karen Zacarãƒâas, May 4
From left, Paul DeBoy, Anne-Marie Cusson, and Monica Rae Summers Gonzalez with the Gardeners in "Native Gardens" at Syracuse Phase. (Photograph by Michael Davis.)
M inutes after hearing Native Gardens read aloud by her bandage for the first fourth dimension, director Melissa Crespo wanted to talk nigh neighbors. "I'm ane of those people who likes to know who I'm living near," she said to the cast following the tabular array read.
Information technology was Jan. 22, the day after Martin Luther Rex Jr. Day and 32 days into the nation's longest-ever government shutdown, which would last 3 more days. Some 800,000 federal employees were without a paycheck for much the same reason Crespo and her cast sat around a table in Syracuse, N.Y.: a border dispute between neighbors.
"Walls are very much in our lives correct at present—they're constantly being talked about," Crespo said after the reading in the Syracuse Phase rehearsal room while Lulu, her rescued Basset Hound mix, sat on her lap. The Brooklyn-based manager is at the helm of a 3-way co-production of Native Gardens, which starting time ran at Syracuse Phase Feb. xiii-March 3, would move on to the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, New York March 26-April 21, and will wrap its run on Portland Center Stage's U.Due south. Banking company Main Stage May 18-June sixteen.
Along with Crespo, the four atomic number 82 actors—Anne-Marie Cusson, Paul DeBoy, Erick González, and Monica Rae Summers Gonzalez—are traveling with the production to all three locations. The silent Latinx gardener roles are cast locally in each city (in Syracuse they were played by Baker Adames, Luis A. Figuerosa Rosado, Aaron J. Mavins, Isabel Rodriguez, and Devante Vanderpool).
Native Gardens has been wildly pop among regional theatres, sliding into the eighth slot of the American Theatre's Acme 10 Most Produced Plays of the 2018-19 season, with a dozen productions at TCG member theatres. Penned past i of the 10 female writers on that list, it helped earn Zacarías the 5th spot on another of AT'due south lists, the Top twenty Most-Produced Playwrights of 2018-19. Both lists were the virtually various they've ever been, with Zacarías 1 of 6 playwrights of colour and 11 women on the playwrights' list.
Native Gardens also marks a breakthrough for the 45-year-old Syracuse Phase: It'south the theatre's first creative team entirely composed of women of colour. This includes Zacarías, who was born in Mexico and lives with her family in Washington, D.C. "Information technology'south an overdue milestone for our theatre," said Robert Hupp, now in his tertiary season as Syracuse's artistic director. Hupp said the theatre did not prepare out to assemble a team solely of women of color—it just happened. "Nosotros did set out intentionally to assemble an outstanding team of inspiring designers," he said.
That team includes, along with Crespo, scenic designer Shoko Kambara, costume designer Lux Haac, lighting designer Dawn Chiang, and sound designer Elisheba Ittoop. "I personally dearest working on all-female person teams," Crespo enthused. "I don't know why, but the communication's easier for some reason. We all come to each other with greater respect and understanding and collaboration."
Native Gardens is a 90-infinitesimal one-act (split into ii acts for this production) that follows 2 sets of couples who live beside each other in a lush, historic D.C. neighborhood. Frank and Virginia Butley are an elderly white couple whose son has aged and moved out of the house they've lived in for decades. Frank spends nearly of his complimentary fourth dimension perfecting his manicured garden, a pastime he hopes will relieve his chronic stress and win him an award from the Potomac Horticultural Society.
New next door are Tania and Pablo Del Valle, a Latinx couple in their early 30s. They're expecting their first child and take large plans for their fixer-upper, including a "native garden" made of plants indigenous to the environment. The idea is the brainchild of Tania, a Ph.D. candidate in the thick of identity experiments for her doctoral dissertation in anthropology. As she explains in the play, "I am interested in origins, and when nosotros claim them and when we end." Pablo is a lawyer with dreams of making partner at his new business firm—an appetite that gives him the idea of inviting his entire 60-person business firm to their not-yet-fixed-up fixer upper.
That'due south where the fence comes in.
With Frank and Virginia'south blessing, Tania and Pablo plan to supplant the run-downwardly chain-link debate that separates the two yards with "the kind of stately wood fence a law business firm would capeesh," as Pablo puts it. But later examining the plan for their m, the Del Valles discover they're entitled to more space than currently demarcated—two anxiety, to be precise. Merely moving the fence to claim those two feet promises to ruin Frank's garden just days before his competition, while keeping it where it is robs the Del Valles of their rightful holding.
The ensuing fight over the argue's true location is riddled with racism, ageism, microaggressions, and questions of who can (and should) merits ownership of state. Some lines read like they're ripped from the headlines (and they are).
Declares Tania to Frank and Virginia: "I'g edifice my debate to go on yous out!"
Adds Pablo, "And you're going to pay for it."
The seed forNative Gardens was planted at a di nner political party. Zacarías was looking for ideas for a play she was writing for Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and a friend told her, "kind of jokingly, 'Oh, you lot should write about me, I'm in a fight with my neighbors,'" Zacarías recalled. As the friend described the fight, other party guests chimed in with their own tales of neighborhood squabbles. The stories were both "absurd" and "really stressful," she said.
While the stories were told with laughter, they stuck with the playwright. "All of those fights are so primal and poetic and absurd in some ways," Zacarías said. "Only the consequences were really real and emotionally upsetting. And I kept thinking, Wow, it's almost like every single boxing between nations or tribes, etc., boils down to this fight nigh property and culture, in a sense."
The play also gave Zacarías a platform for creating Latinx characters who are seldom seen onstage. "I was over the moon about the fact that I got to play a smart, passionate Latina who was very educated and I didn't have to put an emphasis on for," said Summers Gonzalez, who plays Tania.
It besides could hardly exist ameliorate timed. Though Zacarías wrote the play long before Donald Trump even began talking nigh edifice a wall, obviously, she said, "There'southward been something in the atmosphere for much longer that made this comedy near gardening and planting and edifice a fence have a much deeper resonance."
Since the play premiered at Cincinnatti Playhouse in January 2016, Zacarías has peppered the script with details that deepened its connection to current events, particularly as Trump'due south wall entered the national conversation and the piece grew and moved on to larger productions. (That's where the "yous'll pay for it" line came from.) The text is now in its final, ready-to-publish course.
Native Gardens drew Hupp's attention in January 2018 as he programmed the next season. The play addressed "issues that our season wasn't confronting that I wanted us to talk well-nigh," he said. No ane involved knew that the president's demand for a wall would effectively close down the regime by year'due south end. Simply of course, as in real life, a wall is not simply a wall; information technology'due south as well a metaphor for fear of the unknown, for cultural differences, and for the toxicity of divisions. Though unlike in existent life, the play is actually intentionally funny.
Months before the cast was assembled, in Baronial 2018, Syracuse Stage brought the Native Gardens blueprint squad together. The theatre organized a blueprint conference, providing two days of meetings for each designer to share their vision of the play.
"It'southward such an important function of the process, where we get to just exist in a room together and dream up the show so start putting the logistics on it," Elisheba Ittoop said.
It was then that Crespo discovered that in addition to doing audio design, Ittoop composes music, and asked her to arts and crafts music for the scenic transitions. Many of the transitions contain brusk vignettes in which the neighbors quietly stir the pot—such as throwing acorns from i grand to the other—or the Latinx gardeners bring in some plants, take others out, or bring in supplies to build the wood fence. Ittoop tends to etch original music for shows she works on to help defray the costs of pre-recorded music. It also gives her the flexibility to cut or manipulate the music in whatever mode needed.
"I do care about artists getting fairly compensated for their music," she said. "I'thou less and less interested in putting up music that'south not paid for, that we haven't gotten the rights for. And I'm more interested in creating, crafting something that'south specifically for our evidence."
Crespo and Ittoop worked together to interpret each graphic symbol musically. For the aging Butleys, they chose an elegant and classical audio. Ittoop described this music to the theatre's marketing team every bit "a little flake of a raised countenance," drawing inspiration from Mark Mothersbaugh's score for The Royal Tenenbaums.
For the young, vibrant Del Valles, Ittoop steered clear of the obvious choice of using Latin music to narrate a Latinx couple. "That's not really interesting to me, and I remember that besides goes in to stereotypes really quickly," she said. Instead, Ittoop focused on the feeling of disruption that comes along with the Del Valles' presence. A marching band, she and Crespo determined, would evoke this mood, citing the fashion the CW television set prove "Jane the Virgin" uses a marching ring for many of its musical transitions. Ittoop also drew inspiration from the theme of NBC's "Parks and Recreation."
Hints for Shoko Kambara'due south breathtaking blueprint appear to exist embedded in the text: Tania and Pablo refer to their "patched grass," a gnome, and a majestic oak tree, among other items, giving Kambara a vision of how their k should appear. "Information technology'due south like reading a murder mystery where you take to collect the clues," Kambara said.
After researching neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., Kambara settled on row houses for each couple. The Butleys' home was modern and renovated, complete with a back deck, while the Del Valles' appeared to have not seen attending in years. Kambara created two houses very like in pattern, as though the Del Valle house is what the Butleys' would await similar prior to renovation. "Probably, in that neighborhood, they're even so, and and so everyone adds their little season to information technology," Kambara said. While much of the material for the Butleys' house could exist institute online, the Del Valles' had to be custom-made to appear onetime and run-downwardly.
And then there's Frank's garden. While Crespo and Kambara researched many of the flowers mentioned in the play, finding the silk form of all the flowers for Frank's garden was too plush, so they focused more on the color palette than the actual blazon of flower. "I tried to go along the larger flower beds in a tighter colour palette, so it wasn't too distracting," Kambara said. "I didn't want it to look similar a altogether cake, like confetti."
A special custom mixture of fake dirt was concocted past the props department to avoid the bugs and mud that existent dirt would bring. A dry out mixture of coconut fiber substrate, dark ground cork, buckwheat hulls, and light ground cork, information technology was mixed together and combined with corn starch, soap, and water. "I really garden myself, so when I tested it I was like, 'This is what my easily look similar when I dig in my garden," prop supervisor Mary Houston explained.
At each performance, flowers get yanked and portions of the garden are torn upward. And then Kambara designated specific flowers—consummate with fake roots and dirt—that could exist pulled out. Actors were instructed which parts of the garden they could destroy, and which had to remain intact. "Function of the trick is to make Frank'southward g and so tightly designed that even a piddling shift in information technology will [cause disruption]," Kambara said.
She was also tasked with creating a set that could not merely travel simply fit inside a few dissimilar theatres. "It'due south designed for iii spaces, and we slightly shift the downstage area in each venue," Kambara said. "Simply information technology'south almost the same."
A significant element of Kambara's scenery was the towering oak tree, requiring close collaboration with lighting designer Dawn Chiang to ensure the leaf didn't make it the way of the lighting instruments. Subsequently working with Syracuse Stage'southward technical manager Randall Steffen, Kambara and Chiang were able to become the leaves high enough to let for calorie-free to seep through.
Chiang's lighting bounces between daytime, nighttime, and curt vignettes performed during transitions. And it varies slightly with each theatre, due to differences in equipment. Chiang and Ittoop are the only members of the design team who are going to each theatre to assistance gear up the show. "Because [lighting instruments are] so unique to every venue that you go to, I accept to go because I take to reposition everything and re-cue everything," Chiang said. Crespo will also travel to Rochester and Portland to direct each city's new batch of gardeners.
Color played an integral role in how costumer designer Lux Haac helped tell the play'south story. "The thing that was important to Melissa and I when we started this was simply actually making sure that these were real people and that they came across as very genuine, and that that came through in the costumes," Haac said.
Not unlike their theme music, the refined lifestyle of the Butleys was besides reflected through color. "The Butleys' garden is much more traditional, which led to their costumes being more conservative," Haac explained.
Haac's inspiration as well came from the characters' relationships to their gardens. For Tania, she used a vibrant, vivid colour palette that reflected Tania's loftier energy and the new life she'southward starting with Pablo. "She is dressing for the garden she aspires to have," Haac said. She dressed the Butleys in a more subdued palette that contrasted with their colorful garden.
Despite all the pronounced conflicts among these characters, reflected in the bear witness'due south design, Crespo stressed to the whole team the importance of conveying that the characters all like each other and take every action with good intentions. This is fundamental during the couples' outset meeting, where, "in the wrong easily, the start of the play can really go due south very quickly," Crespo said.
Summers Gonzalez admits that, in the early stages of rehearsal, she was working also hard to communicate that Tania did not concur with the Butleys. Instead of instilling Tania with dash, she came across equally somewhat of a know-it-all. She knew she needed to make an adjustment to align with Crespo's vision and the intent of the play.
"All of these characters are good human beings," Summers Gonzalez said. "Y'all can be a actually keen person and not necessarily agree with how someone lives their life, only that doesn't hateful that you need to make that credible."
This is evident in the character descriptions that Zacarías provides in the beginning of the script, which begin the same way for every graphic symbol: "Smart, likeable." There are no easy villains hither.
"All of these characters, they want to do the best they can and no one wants to offend the other," Gonzalez said. "Everyone wants to get along." And unlike in real life, both parties are willing to work together and compromise to accomplish a happy catastrophe.
Native Gardens met its budgeted sales goal for its Syracuse run by Feb. 13, the first solar day of previews and two days before the play officially opened at the 499-seat Archbold Theatre. "That is a relatively unheard-of statistic for united states of america, for a play to reach its full goal before opening dark," Hupp said. To him, the box office numbers betoken "a desire to confront these problems."
This desire was reflected in the play'southward reviews, which were overwhelmingly positive. In a review for the city's local news site, Syracuse.com, Linda Lowen called the comedy "an upbeat workout of the funny bone, releasing the sort of toxins we'd all be meliorate off without." It was not lost on Lowen that it was a work from a blueprint team entirely of women of color. "What happens onstage isn't the but political statement being made by Native Gardens," she wrote.
Native Gardens's official opening on February. 15 landed on the 24-hour interval Trump declared a national emergency to admission the funds he says he needs to build his wall. "It felt very eerie," Crespo said of the play's timing with electric current events. At the same time, as she listened to audiences laugh and react around her, she realized, "Information technology's good that the play is in that location for people to have an outlet to talk about it."
But it wasn't but laughter that stuck with Summers Gonzalez. After one performance, she recalled, a Latina audience member began to cry while speaking to her. "She was like, 'You don't know how much it means to see someone similar me onstage,'" Gonzalez recalled. To which she responded: "I'1000 right there with you lot."
Maggie Gilroy, a former intern of this magazine, is a news reporter for The Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, N.Y. In 2015 she interned for Syracuse Phase'southward dramaturgy dept.
Native Gardens is written by Karen Zacarías. Information technology commencement ran at Syracuse Phase Feb. 13-March three, and is running Geva Theatre Heart in Rochester, New York March 26-April 21, and Portland Center Phase May 18-June 16. Information technology is directed by Melissa Crespo, with scenic design past Shoko Kambara, costume design by Lux Haac, lighting design past Dawn Chiang, and sound design/original music by Elisheba Ittoop.
Source: https://www.americantheatre.org/2019/04/08/native-gardens-building-the-botanical-wall/
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