No paradise in Garden

BAILA LAZARUS

Ah, neighborhood romance. It can make for such tantalizing stories – boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, father forces them apart, love conquers all and they find a way to live happily ever after.

While the new play at the Stanley Theatre – Paradise Garden – follows this plot line, it takes the audience on one helluva convoluted ride to get there.

In this boy-meets-girl construct, Day (Kevin MacDonald) and his mother Jean (Gina Chiarelli) live next to Layla (Lucia Frangione, the author of the play), and her parents, Mustafa and Ergul (Richard Newman and Marie Stillin).

Their common point of conversation and interaction is a large garden, called a paradise garden because it’s designed so all the paths lead to the fountain.

Day sees Layla in her window and develops a crush on her, though she is older and seems uninterested and rather conservative. Layla seems curious at first, but is disgusted when seeing Day bringing other women home.

Layla is the daughter of Turkish parents who left their home and forged lives in Canada, settling in Victoria. She is bound by her obligations to her family and her own strict culture, but not so much that she doesn’t disobey her father and, rather than follow a career in regenerative medicine, she explores the world of art as a curator.

This forms the basis of much of the conversation in the play – the role of art, culture and human nature. Much of this discussion occurs between Layla and Day or Layla and her parents over what art is and what its function should be – but often in such an esoteric, almost pretentious way, I thought maybe a discussion on regenerative medicine would have, in fact, been easier to understand and more enjoyable.

“Art should be beyond what it is; it should be about what could be,” is the level at which the conversations take place.

Adding to this is a style of monologue that has the actors randomly drop into the third person while talking about themselves.

At the beginning of the play, for example, Day comes out and describes himself: “Day lives in constant fear of losing paradise and constant guilt for having it.”

It’s an interesting, albeit often annoying, way of giving us more information about the characters that we may not glean from their dialogue.

Back to the plot, however, though Day and Layla get to share a kiss toward the middle of the play, that’s as far as they get. Layla’s mother dies and she takes the role of caring for her father as he travels around the world lecturing. Layla gets to experience life as a curator. Finding new artists to show off to the world, she becomes a gatekeeper, deciding who is going to get their art displayed and who will remain in obscurity. She quickly finds out how unfulfilled she is and only finds relief when she finally returns home.

Dramaturge Rachel Ditor called this play “lush,” “funny,” “intelligent” and “unique.” All these are true, and yet somehow the whole falls short of the sum of its parts.

Day comes across as an angst-ridden, confused university student (who hasn’t been there?) but his character waffles too much between insight and ignorance.

Often the direction of the characters is off – especially in angry moments. It often comes across as just reading words off a page in a loud voice, but without proper emotion.

And Mustafa’s accent seems to change constantly. I could have sworn he was supposed to be from South Africa, but other times he would sound like an eastern European Jew.

The one consistent actor in the troupe was Chiarelli as Day’s mom, a flighty divorcée whose comedic performance, though minimal, is a welcome contrast to the heaviness of the rest of the script.

Overall, the play was entertaining and thought-provoking. And Day and Layla do a good job tackling the tough script. I’m glad I went to see it, but I doubt it will be one of my top-three this year.

Paradise Garden runs until April 11 at the Arts Club Stanley Theatre. Call 604-687-1644 or visit artsclub.com for tickets.

Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, painter and photographer. Her work can be seen at orchiddesigns.net.

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