Can Union Arts Center's latest play overcome its central clichés?

Theater review

An older couple sit companionably on a park bench, something they've clearly done a thousand times.

Old Man (R. Hamilton Wright) comments on the weather, trying to coax the visibly distressed Old Woman (Kathy Hsieh) into conversation - about birds, clouds and betting on the chance of rain.

This convention - two people on a park bench - is also something any audience has seen a thousand times. But in Jiehae Park's torpid play "the aves," running at Union Arts Center directed by Sheila Daniels, that cliché both is and is not what you'd expect.

For reasons that I won't spoil for you, Old Man and Old Woman are soon replaced on that park bench by Young Man (Jerik Fernandez) and Young Woman (Varinique "V" Davis), who also may or may not be what you'd expect.

Though it's set in the near future, "the aves" 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.

"Sit with me," Old Man says.

"I wanna go," Old Woman replies.

Push. Pull.

Park writes with a sparse delicacy that's echoed in the show's scenic design (L.B. Morse), a semi-surrealist version of a natural space that is itself an echo of the play's 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.

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?

Unfortunately, though "the aves" might present as a thought-provoking play, when probed it doesn't seem to go deeper than the puddle in which the park's 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's big ideas are presented to the audience in yellow highlighter: Things don't always turn out the way you thought. Isn't it wonderful to forgive?

In a play as lean as the 80-minute "the aves," 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 - and a cliché, unfortunately, remains a cliché.

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