Native Gardens opens to the strains of “Las Casitas del Barrio Alto” by Victor Jara. Keen-eared listeners will recognize the melody of Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes” and while the Spanish iteration was written to critique socioeconomic disparities in Chile, it contains the same critique of upper middle class posturing as it’s sister song. If you know your protest music, or just remember the lyrics of the theme song of Weeds, the stage is immediately set.
The narrative revolves around the relationship between two pairs of neighbors: Virginia (“Ginny”) and Frank, two elderly, long time residents of a historic DC neighborhood; and Pablo and Tania, young professionals with a baby on the way who have purchased the fixer-upper next door.
Things get off to a good start. Frank and Ginny are happy that a young family has purchased the house after it has spent years as a rental managed by an absent and disliked landlord. They greet the newcomers with wine and chocolate. Tania and Pablo are thrilled with their luck in being able to buy into an aspirational neighborhood and are full of dreams for improving their property.
Still, there are hints at potential fault lines. Ginny and Frank, assuming that Tania and Pablo are Mexican immigrants, try to relate to them by talking about their Mexican vacations and sprinkling their small talk with the few Spanish words they know. In actuality, Pablo is the scion of a wealthy Chilean family, cast out for marrying outside his social class. Tania is a New Mexico native whose family roots in the region go back so far that no one in her known family has ever been an immigrant, and she is not fluent in Spanish. Both are highly-educated professionals: Pablo is an attorney on track to make partner and Tania is a doctoral candidate trying to complete her dissertation before she gives birth.
It also soon becomes clear that while Frank and Tania are both enthusiastic gardeners, they have very different philosophies. Frank’s formal garden has come in second in the local horticultural society competition several years in a row and relies heavily on non-native plants maintained by the use of pesticides and insecticides. Meanwhile, Tania has plans to redo their yard with a garden that will utilize native plants and increase the local insect and bird population, much to Frank and Ginny’s chagrin.
Nonetheless, different strokes might have peacefully coexisted if not for a simple fence. As the only foreign-born lawyer at his firm, Pablo feels intense pressure to prove himself and somewhat accidentally invites his entire firm to his house for a party — a house that is in need of remodeling and can’t possibly be made serviceable in time for the function. Tania is understandably upset and points out the impossibility of hosting an event in their house, but Pablo wants to keep his commitment because he thinks it will aid him in his goal of becoming partner at the firm. They compromise on a backyard barbecue, reasoning that they can spruce up their yard in time and that white people love barbecues. They decide that in order to make the biggest impact in the time available, they’ll replace the chain link fence that divides their yard from Frank and Ginny’s with a brand new wooden one. When they approach Frank and Ginny with their idea, the couple is delighted: they’ve never liked the chain link fence and the gardening competition is the day after the company barbecue. They believe the backdrop of a wooden fence will give Frank a chance at winning the coveted first prize.
Things take a turn when the city surveyor’s report reveals that Tania and Pablo’s yard is actually two feet wider than they thought and that Frank’s raised beds are in those two feet. Polite, passive aggressive chaos ensues. Frank and Ginny object to the sudden loss of property they believed was theirs, especially right before the garden competition that Frank is desperate to win. Tania and Pablo want to build their new fence on their actual property line and claim all the space they’re paying property taxes on. Multiple attempts to reach a mutually agreeable arrangement fail and tensions escalate until Pablo and Tania’s baby decides to make an early appearance.
When asked why this play was chosen for their 2025 season, producing artistic director Adam Knight said he felt the message would be timely following the election, regardless of the outcome. “At the end of the day, we all have to live beside each other, and this play shows us how we might be able to do that.”
The production of Native Gardens once again demonstrates how much impact the Riverside crew is capable of creating with limited space and a compact time frame. The show clocks in at 90 minutes—shout-out to a fully realized arts experience that you can have on a work night—and the small set convincingly conveys two backyards complete with decks, paths and a tree.
The incredible soundtrack also does a lot of work in this production, conveying the themes of old vs young, tradition vs change and contrasting cultures with melody instead of dialogue. Ginny and Frank’s scenes are soundtracked by classics of the 50s and 60s while Tania and Pablo’s scenes are backed by a combo of Latin pop and Spanish language protest songs.
A show with a fixed set and a weighty and potentially divisive subject matter can only be effectively performed by a very adroit cast and the actors in Native Gardens deliver. Ron Clark, who taught theater at Cornell in Mt. Vernon, plays Frank Butley as a hilarious, endearing Dad joke machine whose dearest wish is the very relatable desire to have the best garden in the neighborhood. Judy Hovland’s Virginia is the archetypal well-meaning white woman who believes that her experiences as one of the first women in her field gives her insight into the struggles of racial minorities. Franco Machado-Pesce deftly portrays a man accustomed to privilege who has to reckon with the realities of being viewed as just another foreigner in the US. And Jessica Murillo Kemp’s Tania is perhaps the most grounded and down-to-earth character of them all, capable of seeing both her neighbors’ white privilege and her husband’s class privilege and seeking to find a compromise that is fair to everyone.
Native Gardens could not be a more timely show for our political era and it leans into hope and humanity rather than cruelty and despair. It is playing at Riverside Theatre through March 16.
