←Recommendations of The Garden of Night Blooming Flowers

The tragedy of star-crossed lovers can be in the choosing to part, in knowing that their comets' tails trail off too far away from one another. (And, of course, asking the age-old question of what you're prepared to sacrifice for your causes.) Vargas crafts this heartache of a story in such vivid and gorgeous detail that I genuinely felt mournful to see it end so quickly, but grateful for how expertly the time is spent.

A powerhouse of a (mostly) two-hander, I'd love to see this piece not only produced, but entered into the Scenework Canon.

No doubt there's a time and place for a flower's blooming to be appreciated, and Vargas' sharp work does just that with a tight tale of a love that could have been in bloom and doom.

Here grows a garden embracing the moment two characters aligned in purpose but not in means, open themselves to the light of night's embrace but catch that light quite differently.

Some flowers bloom for 10 minutes and we can't help but wait for the garden's time to come again.

Vargas writes an amazing piece because it feels like the climax to a three-hour epic that I just sat through. But it's not! It's a lovely tight little ten-minute that is just so well written it feels completely contextualized in the world Vargas is keeping just out of your reach. Charming, romantic, and deeply interesting.

There is a fullness to this play from Samantha Vargas that had me gobsmacked - when I reached End of Play, I thought, "What do you mean there isn't more??" This is not to say The Garden of Night Blooming Flowers is dramatically thin or overly brief; it is a credit to Vargas' engrossing execution of this familiar star-crossed scenario that the reader is left wanting more. I'm sure audiences will be clamoring for an encore.