Taking. Obtaining. Borrowing: A Native Gardens Review

Alina Collins Maldonado, Bradley Tejeda, and Greg Wood in Native Gardens (2026) at Hartford Stage | Photo by T. Charles Erickson

Audiences are tickled by Hartford Stage’s production of Native Gardens, a comedic show about fences and flowers and loving your neighbors as yourself. This play explores themes of culture, identity, different strokes for different folks, and drawing lines in the sand of ethics and values, with not-so-subtle jabs at the prevailing political climate of intolerance and every man for himself. Native Gardens is a calculated work of comedic brilliance that reminds us to do unto others what we would have them do to us.

“Native Gardens is an anthropological masterpiece that dissects the culture of what we love and how our flowerbed of loves can produce weeds of hatred if we aren’t vigilant.”

American Gothic by Grant Wood (1930)

The story picks up as new neighbors Tania (Alina Collins Maldonado) and Pablo del Valle (Bradley Tejeda) hit the ground running in their fixer-upper, next door to the stately Ginny (Judith Lightfoot Clarke) and Frank Butley (Greg Wood), with their horticultural society contender of a yard. Pablo, a Chilean immigrant and newcomer at his D.C. law firm with something to prove, impulsively invites his entire firm to his new home. His wife, Tania, pregnant and pushing through to complete her anthropological dissertation, works to support her husband’s backyard BBQ dreams.

Their neighbors, Frank and Ginny, their lives outfitted with recreational gardening and remote consultation work in the downswing of the go-get-it era, on the opposite end of the corporate climb, having already put in their time, seek to retire to their manicured lawn in the leisure of their days. Frank’s pet project, his garden, is shaping up to beat his arch nemesis when Tania and Pablo’s 6-day BBQ countdown unearths some inequities that unintentionally sabotage Frank’s horticultural dreams and threaten to unmend the fences between them. The neighbors face off in defense of their own interests before coming to the realization that there’s more between them than fences and offenses.

Clarke’s polished class makes way for the humor in the collapse of her composure. Wood delivers Bryan Cranston’s Hal (Malcolm in the Middle)- level dad-joke unseriousness, while Tejeda, dressed like a power player, emanates an enjoyable, buoyant whimsy. Maldonado is the crux of comedy, whose performance stacks storytelling in verbal delivery, body language, facial expressions, and immaculate timing, offering the most compelling range of joy, rage, passion, fear, and compassion.

The ensemble of Carla Astudillo-Fisher, Mia Lozada, and Aidan Ramirez shuffles in with joyful pseudo-slapstick lawn care montages to the vibes of Suavemente and other vibrant Latinx sounds.

The set, split off-center between the meticulously curated array of botanicals against the backdrop of classic brickwork, warm lighting, and an air of affluence, and the understated, worn siding, and unkempt nature of the del Valle’s lawn. This set design by Lawrence E. Moten III denotes the clash between cultures, values, and socioeconomic status, and sets the stage for those differences to be blown out of proportion.

Ivania Stack’s costume design highlights each character archetype and the contrast between their identifiers: Pablo, the buttoned-up suit, eager to prove himself, Tania, the pregnant tree-hugger in overalls, Ginny, the ladder-climbing woman of hard-earned status, and Frank, the picture of diligent work with a cushion of pamper and privilege.

This production craftily invokes double entendres, poking fun at the crass political conversations of our current climate and revering the approach that is a resolution for all of humanity’s isms (ageism, sexism, racism, and even narcissism). Native Gardens plants seeds of understanding for the beauty that diversity inspires, and calls viewers to bring their beliefs to the surface as they pick a side in the neighbors’ squabble, then challenge them in real time as the neighbors begin to challenge their own biases and stubbornness.

Native Gardens is an anthropological masterpiece that dissects the culture of what we love and how our flowerbed of loves can produce weeds of hatred if we aren’t vigilant. Native Gardens runs through May 10th. For tickets, visit https://www.hartfordstage.org