Coral Wylie’s play Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew follows a teenager discovering themselves through horticulture and memories of an old family friend, played by Omari Douglas
Gardening can be radical, whether a gardener realises it or not. In 2010, fashion designer Ron Finley turned neglected areas in his South Central neighbourhood of Los Angeles into vegetable patches. He was ordered to remove them for gardening without a permit but, with a group of activists, fought back and changed the city’s laws. Derek Jarman’s home in Kent, where he lived in his final years and grew plants in an inhospitable garden, has become a pilgrimage site. Many LGBTQ+ people consider it symbolic of successfully existing in an unwelcoming space, much as Jarman had as a queer man under a Conservative government in the 1980s.
The transformative power of nature for marginalised communities has a central theme in Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew, the debut play by nonbinary writer and performer Coral Wylie, staged this month at the Bush theatre in London. In this exploration of queerness, generational trauma, family dynamics and, less explicitly, race, gardening serves as a powerful tool for personal and collective healing. “It’s a radical act to garden – to take an outdoor space and make a home out of it,” says the 29-year-old over a video call.
Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew is at Bush theatre, London, 8 February-22 March
* This article was originally published here
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