STAGE REVIEW : Memories of the Gang Trap

SAN DIEGO —  The good news is that Brenda Wong Aoki’s formidable storytelling talents are as much in evidence in “The Queen’s Garden” as they are in “Obake!”

Both shows are playing in repertory at the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s Lyceum Space.

The sad news is that the autobiographical tale she tells in “The Queen’s Garden” holds a grim warning. Her memories of growing up in Long Beach among Asian and Pacific Islander street gangs describe being raised in poverty and going to schools that give up on kids long before they drop out. She tells of living in the midst of drug deals that offer a real--though fleeting--alternative to neediness.

But, despite rejecting gang pressures, Aoki, like so many others, was still a vicarious victim of the gangs--her high school boyfriend used drug dealing as a way out of school failure and poverty.

Unlike “Obake!,” a collection of five tales that Aoki tells crisply and cleanly over the course of 90 minutes, Aoki unveils the two-hour “Queen’s Garden” slowly and circuitously, appearing at times as if she’s trying to avoid telling what she has come to tell.

Most of the show’s first half deals with growing up--with being called “Chopped Suey” by other kids because of her mixed parentage, with her reverential love for her boyfriend’s mother, who sweetens the lives of those around her by growing roses fit for a queen, and with her father’s cozy community drug store that gets swallowed up by another store, leaving her pharmacist father lucky to find a job at the Lucky.

In the second half she tells of dropping out of college to teach at-risk high school kids like the ones she went to school with. And she tells of trying to reclaim her boyfriend from his life as a gang member. Through these stories she reports--simply--what happened to her and the others she has loved.

Aoki is an extraordinary storyteller who uses expressive gestures instead of props to describe her life and the people she’s known. The set by Steven La Ponsie--a tiny cityscape behind her with little lights and a big screen--is a whimsical reminder of place. In life, the city where she lived dwarfed its inhabitants and determined their destiny. In her performance, she has gotten some distance from the city, and, appropriately, she dwarfs the set.

The music, composed by Mark Izu and performed live by Izu on bass and Joe Perez on a variety of wind instruments, helps set the mood with its hip, jazzy feel punctuated by breezy island percussive and flute sounds. The lighting by Jose Lopez tracks the shifting tones of the piece.

Like real life, “The Queen’s Garden” meanders. Every word does not fit into a taut vision of the whole. But it is a very important piece of work--a valuable insight into a world of lost children that the country needs desperately to find and reclaim.

“QUEEN’S GARDEN”

Written and performed by Brenda Wong Aoki. Director is Jael Weisman. Original score by Mark Izu. Original conception by Phyllis Look, Jael Weisman and Brenda Wong Aoki. Music performed by Mark Izu and Joe Perez. Lighting by Jose Lopez. Set by Steven La Ponsie. Costume by Dori Quan. Stage manager is Sonja C. Anderson. Call for performance times through Nov. 28. Tickets are $18-$24 depending on day and time of performance. At the Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza, 235-8025.