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THREE IS COMPANY
(The Bronze Gardener)
THREE IS COMPANY (The Bronze Gardener). © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
INTRODUCTION
In pastel-colored "American" suburbia, happiness is not a state of mind—it is a Homeowners Association bylaw. This dreamlike, absurdist farce sets up camp in that plastic limbo of surgical smiles, empty neon acrylic flutes, and militarily manicured lawns to dissect—at full volume—the hypocrisy of political correctness and racial fetishism. Here, performative progressive tolerance blows sky-high when desire—that silent gardener who never checks in at the security gate—slips right into the living room.
Through saturated pop minimalism, where real props coexist with thin air and stylized finger-choreography replaces garden tools, the play flips the mirages of hegemonic beauty upside down. Colonial colorism crumbles before the undeniable aesthetic power of bronze skin, wild backyard mushrooms rip through the girdles of conservative morality, and a catalog-perfect marriage discovers that, when it comes to holding up the roof of the "American" Dream, two is a boring mortgage, but three is a work of conceptual art.
CHARACTERS
- TIFFANY (The Bride): Platinum blonde with an indestructible, architectural hairdo. Her face bears a perpetual smile surgically frozen by Botox: even when crying, screaming, or threatening lawsuits, the corners of her mouth never drop. She wears a pastel-pink mermaid-cut wedding gown and a baby-blue tulle apron. She conceals a six-month pregnancy beneath a ridiculous little girdle that does nothing but accentuate her bump.
- HUNTER (The Groom): A lovable, generous, airbrushed-tan blond giant with a square jaw and a mind as smooth and spotless as a bowling ball. He wears a baby-blue tuxedo jacket with satin lapels and no shirt underneath. Everything thrills him, and he possesses zero malice or social filter.
- MARTHA-MAY: Ultra-conservative neighborhood matriarch dressed in rigorous canary yellow, short white gloves, and an endlessly long strand of jumbo pearls. She recounts fatal accidents in her jacuzzi with the breezy cadence of a church bake-sale recipe, barely repressing a volcanic lust.
- RAMIRO MARTÍN: Mexican landscape designer and conceptual artist. He wears tailored black trousers dusted with golden pollen and a fitted dark vest with matte metal buckles over bare arms. He possesses a sculptural, hypnotic beauty—a dark-skinned (prieto) Alain Delon with razor-sharp cheekbones and a melancholic gaze—yet he suffers from deep-seated colorist insecurity, convinced his brown skin is an aesthetic flaw in white suburbia. He carries no tools; instead, whenever he speaks or grows nervous, his fingers perform a subtle, lightning-fast cadence of pinching and caressing the air—the unconscious tic of a master sculptor that suggests to everyone present a manual dexterity as artistic as it is erotic.
- SHANIQUA & SOLANGE: An interracial lesbian power couple who just bought the house next door. Shaniqua is a radical African-American poet wearing an electric-violet geometric caftan and white-framed glasses. Solange is a fierce Latina corporate lawyer in an emerald-green power suit carrying legal folders under her arm.
STAGING AND SET DESIGN
The stage depicts a suburban living room of impeccable geometry and hyper-saturated colors: invisible walls framed by floating mint-green moldings, a curved butter-yellow sofa, a fuchsia acrylic coffee table, a circular turquoise rug, and upstage, three giant synthetic topiary bushes sculpted into whimsical swans and spirals. To one side gleams a gold bar cart holding empty neon-plastic champagne flutes, a chrome fondue fountain for cheese dip, a silver platter with a dome lid, and a retro microphone on a stand with its severed cord dangling two feet above the floor. Pantomime and stylized vocal sound effects erupt only as rhythmic bursts when social artifice overflows.
SCENIC PROLOGUE
Before the living room lights come up, the stage is submerged in an electric-blue twilight. Overly sweet 1950s elevator music plays on a theremin and crystal chimes.
A single bubblegum-pink overhead spotlight illuminates the center of the turquoise rug. RAMIRO appears with his back to the audience, walking in slow motion toward the three synthetic bushes upstage. He stops before the swan-shaped topiary. He holds no shears or tools, yet he raises both hands to face level: his fingers begin to move through the air at hypnotic speed, executing invisible pinches, twists, and caresses. With every flicker of his phalanges, handfuls of glittering metallic petals rain from the grid above, accompanied by an echoed, amplified female sigh over the speakers.
To his left, a second spotlight snaps onto TIFFANY, who adjusts her ridiculous slipping girdle with the mechanical jerks of a wind-up doll while practicing her motionless smile in an empty frame. To his right, a third spotlight hits HUNTER, buffing his own white hands with a silk cloth, and MARTHA-MAY, fingering her jumbo pearls like an erotic rosary while staring relentlessly at RAMIRO's back.
From the side wing, SHANIQUA and SOLANGE march in at double time, planting an invisible "SOLD" sign at the edge of the apron with a sharp click of their heels.
VOICEOVER (In the cheerful baritone of a 1955 appliance commercial announcer): Welcome to Private Eden Hills. Clear skies, zero percent humidity, ninety-nine percent synthetic fiber. Please remember our three covenant rules: keep off the grass, never mix primary colors, and under no circumstances look directly at the gardener's hands.
RAMIRO turns his face over his shoulder toward the audience; a golden glint catches his bronze cheekbones. Every character onstage releases a simultaneous gasp and freezes in place. Brilliant yellow overhead lighting floods the entire stage, launching directly into Scene I.
ACT ONE: THE SYMMETRY OF SYNTHETIC TURF
SCENE I: The Cocktail of White Containment
Blinding overhead light, without a single shadow onstage. TIFFANY, HUNTER, and MARTHA-MAY sit on the butter-yellow sofa holding empty acrylic flutes. They hold a frozen magazine-ad pose for ten seconds until TIFFANY speaks without moving her lips.
TIFFANY (Her smile pinned to her ears): Let's toast again, darlings, but without liquid so we don't stain the turquoise rug. One, two, three: sound of prosperity.
ALL THREE (Clinking their empty plastic flutes in midair with extreme delicacy): Ting-ting, bubble, bubble, fzzzz!
HUNTER (Sets his flute on the fuchsia table and holds both open hands up to his face in childlike wonder): Just look at them, Tiffany. My American white hands. Wide as frosting spatulas, rosy, not a single callus. When I hold them up against the patio light, they look like two freshly baked turkey cutlets. With these hands I carried you across the threshold, and with these hands I'm gonna clap every time our high-yield savings account compounds interest.
TIFFANY (Tries to take a deep breath, but her rigid torso won't allow it; she presses her stomach through the tulle apron and emits a single pneumatic valve sound): Pffffff-click! They're divine, sweetheart. Hands that have never touched damp soil or unscrewed a greasy U-bend. That's what marriage should be: airtight, odorless, and completely crease-free around the waist.
MARTHA-MAY (Stroking her pearl necklace while staring intently at HUNTER's bare pectorals): Oh, dears, don't talk about clogged pipes or you'll make me nostalgic. My late husband Arthur—the second one, the Circuit Judge, not the investment banker who slipped on the lavender bath oil—had hands very much like yours, Hunter, though with far less muscle density. (She bats her eyelashes shamelessly at the groom). Poor Arthur made the dreadful mistake of dining on an English kidney-and-spiced-sausage roast last Fourth of July, right before stepping into our jacuzzi at a hundred and four degrees.
TIFFANY (Smiling with dental ferocity): What a delightfully digestive anecdote for a wedding reception, Martha-May. Would you care for an air canapé?
MARTHA-MAY (Ignoring her, sliding an inch closer to HUNTER's thigh): I warned him from the patio deck: "Arthur, kidneys expand in the hydro-jets." But he insisted on cranking the lumbar blaster to maximum. Three minutes in, he gave one dry hiccup and expelled the entire kidney-and-sausage roast straight into the central intake valve. (She makes a dainty gesture with her white glove and emits a single ridiculous drain noise). Glug-plop! The suction pump jammed, the water whipped into a thick gravy vortex, and Arthur surrendered his soul to the Almighty amidst floating slices of bratwurst. (She touches HUNTER's bare shoulder with the tip of her index finger). Such a waste of a whirlpool on a man with zero lung capacity... Whereas you, Hunter, you have the ribcage of a Baptist lifeguard. With you, my filter would never clog.
HUNTER (Beaming, missing the innuendo entirely): Gosh, thank you, Miss Martha-May! That's because I chew every bite thirty-two times. If you want, I can come over by your pool sometime and teach you vacuum-stomach crunches so that never happens again!
SCENE II: Invasion of the Gated Garden
A real, absurdly long and melodious doorbell chimes the opening bars of an electronic wedding march. TIFFANY springs up rigidly, walks to the floating mint frame at stage right, and opens the imaginary door. SHANIQUA and SOLANGE stride in with commanding poise; behind them stands RAMIRO, holding a pink paper invoice between his fingers.
SHANIQUA (Surveying the yellow sofa and upstage topiaries): Too much primary yellow. The color of colonial guilt disguised as country lemonade. Good afternoon, neighbors. We are the new owners next door, and we're here to notify you that your synthetic leaf-swan is violating our airspace.
SOLANGE (Holding up an emerald legal folder): And that the cul-de-sac covenant contains three unconstitutional clauses I intend to pulverize before Tuesday. I'm Solange, and this is my wife, Shaniqua.
TIFFANY (Suffers a facial micro-stroke behind her Botox. Spotting RAMIRO waiting on the threshold, she grabs the straps of his vest and yanks him toward an acrylic chair by the table): Wives! How wonderfully... plural! Come in, come in, what a breath of demographic fresh air! And you too, Ramiro, don't just stand in the doorway like a sad oil painting! Today you are not the landscaper, today you are our guest of honor! (She flings her arms open toward the newcomers in a panic of performative inclusion). Just look how diverse we are on this private cul-de-sac! Modern couples, bilingual professionals, and just look... how handsome this dark-skinned man is! Look at our handsome prieto!
The lighting shifts abruptly: a warm amber spotlight carves out RAMIRO's face. As he tries to apologize, his hands rise to chest level and his fingers perform that subtle, rhythmic, enveloping motion in the air—as if molding invisible petals or caressing the rim of a crystal goblet. All three women and HUNTER freeze, hypnotized by his fingers.
RAMIRO (Dropping his hands quickly as he notices everyone staring): Sorry, ma'am, force of habit from trimming the fine boxwood... Don't hype me up like that, Miss Tiffany, you're embarrassing me in front of company. How am I... gonna be handsome? I look like an unglazed clay pot sitting in the middle of fine bone china. (He gestures toward HUNTER with genuine admiration). The real handsome one here is Mr. Hunter. Look at him: blond, tall, baby-blue eyes. He's one of those handsome, gorgeous white men; being handsome comes factory-installed for them, it's in every Hollywood movie and wristwatch commercial. A dark guy like me is only good for providing contrast next to the hydrangeas.
MARTHA-MAY (Digging her nails into her pearls, entranced as RAMIRO's fingers unconsciously flutter again near his knee): Good heavens, I had never noticed how he articulates his phalanges! Such dexterity, so Christian and so deeply sinful all at once! (She leans toward him, butchering Spanish in a horrific country-club drawl). No diga esou, caballierou! Usted es mooey guappou! Those hands could prune the Garden of Eden! Mooey guappou, moocho burritou caliente!
SHANIQUA (Crossing her arms, appraising him with aesthetic approval): Brother, you've got a textbook case of colonized mirror syndrome. You have the bone structure of an Olmec god carved out of black obsidian, and you're comparing yourself to a canister of whipped cream.
SOLANGE: Listen to my wife, Ramiro. With those cheekbones and that digital wizardry you've got going on in your hands, my law firm would have made you senior partner by lunch.
HUNTER (Stands up from the sofa, genuinely moved, and slips off his baby-blue tuxedo jacket, standing bare-chested): They're totally right, Ramiro! Don't put yourself down, bro! The way you move your fingers hypnotizes me too, it's like you're playing a tiny invisible harp! And look at your face: brown is sexy and very, very handsome...! Everybody in this room is ridiculously good-looking! (Without any transition whatsoever, he hits three classic Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilding poses in a row, flexing with an angelic smile). Front double biceps for neighborhood brotherhood! Side chest for Ramiro's self-esteem! Lat spread for our new neighbors!
MARTHA-MAY (Staring simultaneously at HUNTER's pectorals and RAMIRO's fluttering hands, she shoves half her pearl necklace into her mouth and bites down with a dry crunch): Crack-crack! Sweet Jesus and the Daughters of the Confederacy! Open a window before my blood pressure blows my hat off! This much male symmetry in one room is more dangerous than eating kielbasa before a hot tub!
ACT TWO: SUBURBAN FERMENTATION
SCENE III: The Psychedelic Mushrooms and the Cheese Dip
TIFFANY lifts the silver dome from the platter and uncovers the chrome fountain of fluorescent yellow cheese dip. The stage lighting turns acid green and ultraviolet.
TIFFANY (Handing out tiny acrylic plates): Let's serve the hors d'oeuvres before the conversation gets any more anatomical! Wild backyard mushrooms freshly foraged by Ramiro from under the blue spruce, smothered in warm processed cheddar dip. Eat up, everyone, it's from Better Homes & Gardens!
Everyone takes a bite in unison. Three seconds of dead stillness pass. Suddenly, the wild mushrooms unleash a rubbery, hallucinogenic euphoria in HUNTER, MARTHA-MAY, and RAMIRO, while the processed cheese dip triggers a gastrointestinal mutiny in TIFFANY, SHANIQUA, and SOLANGE. This is the only moment in the scene where a vocal sound chorus erupts.
TIFFANY, SHANIQUA & SOLANGE (Doubling over slightly with forced elegance as their stomachs rumble in unison): Bor-bo-ryg-mus, glugluglu, pffff-crack! Bor-bo-ryg-mus!
HUNTER (Staring at the turquoise rug as if it were a deep lagoon): Whoa, guys, the carpet is breathing! We have to dance on it so it doesn't float away! Wedding music, hit it!
A warped, slow-motion parlor waltz begins to play, gradually melting into a psychedelic synthesizer cumbia. On one side of the stage, SOLANGE takes TIFFANY by the waist and leads her in a dominant, seductive waltz. TIFFANY tries to keep her distance because of the slight bump of her belly, but lets herself be swept along, visibly flattered.
SOLANGE (Sliding her hand across TIFFANY's rigid back): Unclench those shoulder blades, Blondie. Behind that surgical smile and that bridal cupcake tulle, I can tell you're dying to hop the fence into our side of the yard.
SHANIQUA (Dancing solo while fanning herself with a legal folder, cutting in with poetic jealousy): Glugluglu-brrrr! Solange, I see you! We've been in the zip code for thirty-five minutes and you're already trying to eminent-domain the Ken doll's wife!
TIFFANY (Batting her eyelashes frantically above her immobile smile, thrilled by the attention yet overwhelmed): Oh, Solange, the things you say give me goosebumps right through my airbrush foundation! I am terribly flattered—you have such a commanding executive presence—but I swear to you I am not a lesbian! In fact, I have living proof right inside here as we speak! (She taps twice on her firm stomach). Irrefutable proof that has already been forming for months!
SOLANGE (Laughing as she spins her): Don't blame your sexual orientation on Velveeta indigestion, darling! All three of our stomachs are growling in stereo!
On the other side of the living room, the waltz mutates completely into a hypnotic, slowed-down psychedelic cumbia. RAMIRO steps up to a stiff MARTHA-MAY. He doesn't even need to grab her: he simply moves his fingers softly two inches from her waist and neck, sculpting the air around her silhouette, causing MARTHA-MAY to lose all motor control.
RAMIRO (In a velvet, rhythmic voice, riding the mushroom wave): Loosen up the branches a little, Miss Martha-May... let the rhythm trim away the deadwood...
MARTHA-MAY (Quivering from head to toe like Jell-O in an earthquake as RAMIRO's hands weave near her face): Oh, Lord of the Mayflower, what are you doing with those fingers?! I feel like my soul is being topiary-trimmed without even touching me! Qué guapo es usteud, do you copy, comprehendeu?! What cheekbones, what tropical heat! (She is suddenly seized by a monumental spasm of pleasure that arches her back over the yellow sofa, and she screams at HUNTER across the room). THIS IS PURELY SEXUAL, HUNTER! DON'T JUDGE ME, MY BLOND GIANT, IT'S JUST THAT HE'S TOO HANDSOME! LOOK HOW HE MOVES HIS HANDS, IT IS BIOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST!
HUNTER (Twirling in slow motion while admiring his own forearms, beaming at them with total approval): Oh, yeah, super handsome! You go right ahead and enjoy yourself, Martha-May, it's totally cool! He's sexy and handsome just like me! Man, isn't it awesome when the whole neighborhood is attracted to each other at the same time?!
SCENE IV: The Incendiary Poem and the Genetic Revelation
SHANIQUA, determined to reclaim aesthetic and political command of the evening, leaps onto the fuchsia acrylic coffee table and seizes the microphone with the severed cord.
SOLANGE (Climbs onto the table beside her and grabs her waist with renewed passion): That's my poet! I swear on the Supreme Court I only love you, Shaniqua! I'm done chasing the platinum blonde! Besides, I just put the forensic evidence together—and that blonde is hiding a burgeoning secret under her apron!
MARTHA-MAY (Snatches the microphone SHANIQUA hands down to her and announces like a tabloid radio host): I confirm it before the Homeowners Association! When I hugged her in the foyer, I felt the contraband! Tiffany's "premature pregnancy" is no honeymoon miracle with Hunter! That baby is the growing seed of a wild night in the greenhouse with Ramiro! (She sighs into the microphone in ecstasy). She simply couldn't withstand how guappou, guappou that dark-skinned man is! With those hands of his, anyone would end up pregnant just asking for a mulch estimate!
A brief, choreographed soft-prop brawl erupts: yellow cushions, neon napkins, and artificial flowers fly in slow motion as everyone lets out a single stylized choral gasp: "Ahhhhh-plop!"
TIFFANY (Climbs onto the acrylic table, nudging the neighbors aside. With her Botox smile more radiant and psychotic than ever, she yanks two side ribbons on her gown; a collective vocal burst—"PRRRRRR-BOOM!"—rings out as her six-month belly emerges timidly under the tulle): Yes, it was me! I confess! We were picking out rosebush arrangements, he started doing that hypnotic flutter with his fingers to show me how to graft the stems, and I blacked out civically! It was one night of savage passion on top of the imported peat moss—but listen to me, you gated-garden hypocrites: my baby is mine, and look, I'm not hiding it anymore! It's growing all on its own, like a cute little tree!
RAMIRO (Clapping both hands to his chest, initially wounded in his artistic pride): Whoa, hold on, what do you mean just yours, ma'am?! I put half the conceptual design into that sprout! First you treat me like an exotic lawn ornament, and now you want to cut my name off the credits! (He stops dead in his tracks. His fingers perform a lightning-fast flourish in the air as he calculates the Punnett square in his head. His face lights up in dazzled wonder). Although, wait a second... hold on just a minute! If you're platinum blonde like snow and I've got this chiseled profile that drives everybody crazy... Oh, man! My son is gonna be gorgeous! He's gonna be white like Paul Newman, but with my handsome features!
SOLANGE, SHANIQUA & MARTHA-MAY (Interrupting him in unison, pointing straight at him): Miscalculation, papacito!
SOLANGE: Biological objection! Dark genes are dominant, Ramiro—any paralegal knows that! That kid isn't gonna have a single drop of skim-milk white on him!
SHANIQUA: That baby is coming out pure café con leche, with triumphant melanin right out of the womb!
MARTHA-MAY (Fanning herself with her snapped pearl strand): He'll have a permanent, natural year-round tan from birth! A toasted-caramel baby with your cheekbones and those piano-virtuoso fingers! Oh, how I envy him—he'll never need a tanning bed in his life!
RAMIRO (Absorbing the genetic revelation, puffing out his chest with unprecedented pride): Café con leche? Factory-installed natural tan AND my bone structure? Well, shoot—then he's gonna be the most handsome kid in the entire hemisphere! Dominant prieto genes just conquered the suburbs of "Ameuricau"!
Everyone present—led by HUNTER, who jumps up and down cheering—erupts into rhythmic, enthusiastic applause.
ACT THREE: THE NEW DOMESTIC ORDER
SCENE V: All's Well That Ends in Bed
The lighting softens into a warm peach and twilight-blue glow. The guests gather their folders and gloves, heading toward the floating exit frame.
MARTHA-MAY (Looking at SHANIQUA and SOLANGE with aristocratic disdain): I shall see you ladies tomorrow morning at the emergency HOA board meeting. I'm filing a motion to chop down your bamboo and ban blues singing after six p.m. (She waves goodbye to RAMIRO, wiggling her fingers clumsily in an attempt to imitate him). Adiós, bronze sculpture!
SOLANGE: Call your lawyers, Jacuzzi Widow, because we're gonna subpoena every last pearl you swallowed. Congrats on the caramel heir, neighbors!
MARTHA-MAY, SHANIQUA, and SOLANGE exit. Silence falls over the colorful living room. TIFFANY, HUNTER, and RAMIRO remain alone by the yellow sofa. They pick up three empty neon flutes, mime draining them to the bottom, and slowly begin to laugh. At first it's a muffled giggle, then a wild, hysterical, liberating roar of laughter at the absurdity of their own "American" postcard.
TIFFANY (Stroking her unconfined belly while laughing through her eternal frozen smile): Look at us! The model family from the real-estate brochure! Not a drop of real champagne in the house and a naturally bronzed baby on the way!
RAMIRO (Looking at his bare arms under the warm light, moving his fingers with confident elegance): Hey... the neighbors were right. Just look at this tone: even in the dim light, my bronze is gleaming. How foolish I was wanting to be made of bleached flour when I've got this naturally caramelized foundry finish.
HUNTER (Sitting between the two of them and wrapping them both in his massive white arms): You gleam like crazy, Ramiro! You look like a solid-bronze Olympic trophy! And Tiffany looks gorgeous without that ridiculous girdle. Hey, guys... since the house is huge, the baby's gonna have the best of all three of us, and we all look so ridiculously hot tonight... why don't we go break in the master suite together?
TIFFANY: Three is an excellent odd number for contemporary interior design.
RAMIRO (Smiling sideways as his fingers lightly graze HUNTER's shoulder and TIFFANY's hand): I'll bring the manual technique, you two bring the enthusiasm.
HUNTER (Sighing with endearing shyness as he stands up): Yes, please... just be patient with me, okay? This is new for me—I mean, I'm mostly saying it for Ramiro, don't get too carried away... too soon... I get nervous when there's this much symmetry all at once.
The three of them walk to the center of the turquoise rug. There is no bed onstage, so all three lift the edge of the rug and crawl UNDERNEATH an invisible bed, their three heads poking out together facing the audience. The spotlight irises down rapidly over their faces until the stage plunges into pitch darkness. After two beats of silence, all three shout in unison with farcical glee:
TIFFANY, HUNTER & RAMIRO: CRACK, BOOM, THE BED JUST BROKE!!!
