‘Native Gardens’ in Previews at City Theatre (Sun., 3/12/23)

NATIVE GARDENS by Karen Zacarias, directed by Marc Masterson. City Theatre. Through April 2

In the clustered neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., residents are often divided by political leanings, social ambitions, and divergent paths to wealth and power. In Karen Zacarias’ comedy Native Gardens, two couples are divided by a property line seemingly as arbitrary as their tastes in horticulture, their anxiety over lawn care, or their preference for posies. Latine newcomers, Tania and Pablo are expecting their first child when they move into a new townhouse next door to Frank and Virginia, longtime caregivers of their prize-worthy English garden. What’s not to be expected is an all-out border dispute, complete with threatening epithets, seditious sabotage, and ineffable water torture. To suggest Native Gardens is the stuff of sitcoms is to understate its sarcasm of America’s current culture wars. 

Featuring Evelyn Hernandez, Laurie Klatscher, Juan Riviera Lebron, and Cotter Smith, Native Gardens, directed by City Theatre Co-Artistic Director Marc Masterson, is presented in Pittsburgh in collaboration with Phipps Conservatory and the Pittsburgh Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Zacarias’ comedy was among the Top Ten Most Produced Plays of 2018-2019, as recognized by American Theatre magazine. 7 p.m. City Theatre, 1300 Bingham Street, South Side. (C.P.O.)

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