The Secret Garden
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Though the musical version sweetens the characters and adds several ghosts as narrative devices, it remains remarkably faithful to the original. The Secret Garden is the story of Mary Lennox, a spoiled and unhappy little girl orphaned by a cholera epidemic in India and sent to live with her embittered, hump-backed uncle in his cavernous English mansion. There, with the help of Dickon, a Yorkshire peasant, she heals herself, her Uncle Archie, and his son, Colin, creating a family by opening up a long-locked garden and bringing it and its secrets to new life. If your saccharine meter is rising, remember that this is both a children’s story and a musical, both genres that mine a thick vein of sweetness and hope that makes them popular as well as populist.
Director Eileen Boevers has staged the work as a chamber musical, without lavish sets or a live orchestra, but the emblematic and sentimental story is still lush thanks to Lucy Simon’s arcing music and the cast’s focused, lyrical performances. Despite the occasional overmiked effect (echoey ghosts and the spatial dislocation of voices coming through speakers), the simple staging keeps the focus on the relationships Mary develops. And the performers fill the space with their voices and intensity. As Mary, 11-year-old Heather Johnson performs naturally and sings wonderfully. A long list of credits marks her as a professional child, and although she never achieves Mary’s extremes of crankiness and joy, her work is direct and plain enough to give the adult actors the space to create the story around her. Jessica Boevers as the servant Martha, Guy Adkins as Dickon, and David Studwell as Uncle Archie are particularly strong.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Roger Lewin–Jennifer Girard Studio.
