Native Gardens
Hartford Stage
Hartford
April 25, 2026
When people who are fundamentally different clash over the same set of values on stage, the results can be revealing, and in this case, hilarious.
That’s the basic tale of Native Gardens, the story of neighboring families the Butleys and the del Valles. The Butlers are a well-established older, white, conservative couple whose only child has long since flown the coop. The del Valles are a young, liberal Hispanic couple who have just moved in, with a baby on the way and dreams of making it big.
Both Tania del Valles (played by Alina Collins Maldonado) and Frank Butley are gardeners. That’s where the similarities end. Tania wants to build an ecologically friendly “native garden” in her back yard, while Frank seeks a perfectly manicured display of beautiful foreign flowers to win an annual gardening competition.
The trouble begins when Pablo del Valles (Bradley Tejada) discovers that their yard actually includes two extra feet of the Butley yard, right where Frank’s flowers are. Frank enlists the help of his wife Virginia (Judith Lightfoot Clark) to defend their property, and off to the races we go.
Old neighbors vs. new neighbors is a comedy setup as old as storytelling, and Native Gardens squeezes every bit of humor out of the tried and true formula that it can. Karen Zacarías ratchets up the mania over the course of the 90-minute play.
Native Gardens is a story about culture clash between well-meaning people, across a whole host of cultural differences. There’s a little bit of speechifying from the del Valles about opportunity and equity, but this is mainly to lay down larger stakes which mostly (and thankfully) fall away as the play progresses.
Because yes, equality and tolerance are good, but the heart of this play is how those big social issues play out in
The funniest parts of Native Gardens are when the characters reverse their stereotypical roles and embody each other’s perspectives. One example came when the male leads had a “woke-off”, essentially competing to see who could weaponize progressive language most effectively to make their point (paraphrased):
Frank: Your wife doesn’t like my non-native flowers? Is she against…(dramatic pause) immigrant plants?
Pablo: She’s just trying to resist colonizer plants taking over everything!
Another was when Pablo told Tania that he’d threatened the Butleys with enlisting the full power of his fancy law firm against them to get their land, to which Tania replies,
Tania: We’re going to use all our resources to crush this little old white couple? Are we The Man now?
These humorous reversals and realizations illustrate the age-old adage that people are really the same. As different as the del Valles are culturally, they play by the same power rules as the Butleys. They seek high-power, lucrative jobs, want to live in a posh Washington neighborhood, and want all the value they can squeeze out of their property. Those values fit right in with the neighborhood, even if the native garden doesn’t.
Seeing these so similar, yet so different people fight in a laugh-out-loud climax was great fun, and managed to keep the tension of the disagreement despite sailing headlong into slapstick territory.The performers were game for whatever the script called for, and helped distill their characters down to their key components to make their friction more believable. Maldonado captured the role as the pleasingly righteous but still sometimes annoying do-gooder Tania. Tejada’s smile and energy brought Pablo’s enthusiasm and naivety to life. Wood succeeded in the role an older man who is set in his ways, but isn’t quite cantankerous about it.
My favorite was Clarke’s rendition of Virginia Butley. She plays Virginia with an air of haughty authority that collapses over the course of the play into the same silly sniping and stubbornness as the rest of the characters. The indelible image of the play for me came when Virginia decides to chain herself to her husband’s flowers in protest. She watches Frank with such love and adoration in her eyes as he locks her to a lawn chair.
Native Gardens was a blast of a play; it takes off despite a somewhat slow start. Stick with it, and by the time the play is over, you’ll wish that these two families were your neighbors too.
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Native Gardens continues at Hartford Stage through May 10.
Jamil goes to check out the season finale for live jazz at Hartford Public Library.
