Theater review<\/h2>\n
An older couple sit companionably on a park bench, something they\u2019ve clearly done a thousand times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Old Man (R. Hamilton Wright) comments on the weather, trying to coax the visibly distressed Old Woman (Kathy Hsieh) into conversation \u2014 about birds, clouds and betting on the chance of rain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This convention \u2014 two people on a park bench \u2014 is also something any audience has seen a thousand times. But in Jiehae Park\u2019s torpid play \u201cthe aves,\u201d running at Union Arts Center directed by Sheila Daniels, that clich\u00e9 both is and is not what you\u2019d expect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For reasons that I won\u2019t spoil for you, Old Man and Old Woman are soon replaced on that park bench by Young Man (Jerik Fernandez) and Young Woman (Varinique \u201cV\u201d Davis), who also may or may not be what you\u2019d expect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though it\u2019s set in the near future, \u201cthe aves\u201d is a kind of memory play, fascinated by the passage of time and the endless push-and-pull of both knowing yourself and loving another person.<\/p>\n
\u201cSit with me,\u201d Old Man says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanna go,\u201d Old Woman replies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Push. Pull.<\/p>\n
Park writes with a sparse delicacy that\u2019s echoed in the show\u2019s scenic design (L.B. Morse), a semi-surrealist version of a natural space that is itself an echo of the play\u2019s semi-surrealist, sci-fi-tinged meditation on love, family, memory and contentment. As the seasons change (signaled via the cardboard tree limbs above the stage), the bench remains a solid, stable space amid a churning world, where these people come in search of stillness, both external and internal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And in that stillness, we can ask: What makes us who we are? Are we our bodies, are we our minds? Our thoughts, our feelings, our words? Are we the way we see ourselves, or the way others see us?<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, though \u201cthe aves\u201d might present as a thought-provoking play, when probed it doesn\u2019t seem to go deeper than the puddle in which the park\u2019s pigeons splash. Park falls back on twee conventions like ironic puppetry and character traits that border on manic-pixie-dream-girl. So, instead of gentle nudges toward our own self-discovery, which is a gift that art can give us, the show\u2019s big ideas are presented to the audience in yellow highlighter: Things don\u2019t always turn out the way you thought. Isn\u2019t it wonderful to forgive?\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a play as lean as the 80-minute \u201cthe aves,\u201d which premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2025, every word and gesture requires immense specificity. Here, I must offer a deep appreciation of the talented Wright, who brings a beautiful human simplicity to Old Man, something his co-stars sadly did not deliver. Without that messiness roiling beneath the surface of all their small talk, these characters (and thus our experience of them) remains relatively shallow \u2014 and a clich\u00e9, unfortunately, remains a clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Theater review An older couple sit companionably on a park bench, something they\u2019ve clearly done a thousand times.\u00a0 Old Man (R. Hamilton Wright) comments on the weather, trying to coax the visibly distressed Old Woman (Kathy Hsieh) into conversation \u2014 about birds, clouds and betting on the chance of rain.\u00a0\u00a0 This convention \u2014 two people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2387989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21741],"class_list":["post-2387988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Can-Union-Arts-Centers-latest-play-overcome-its-central-cliches.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2387988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2387990,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387988\/revisions\/2387990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2387989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2387988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2387988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2387988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}