Theater Review—

‘Secret Garden’ Is Done Well In Ridgefield,

But The Story Makes It

Something Better Suited For Adults

By Julie Stern

RIDGEFIELD — The Ridgefield Theater Barn is celebrating the holiday season with its production of The Secret Garden, playwright Marsha Norman’s interpretation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett children’s classic, with music written by Lucy Simon.

It’s a familiar story: Orphaned in India, ten-year-old Mary Lennox is sent to Yorkshire, England, to live with her uncle, the wealthy hunchback, Archibald Craven. A tormented recluse ever since the death of his beautiful young wife Lily, ten years earlier, Craven provides Mary with a home, but cannot bear to have anything to do with her.

Martha, a kindly servant, takes pity on the obnoxious brat, sending over her young brother Dickon as a companion. Dickon, who loves nature and can tame the animals, introduces Mary to the existence of a “Secret Garden” and gradually tames her as well, turning her into a happy, spirited child.

When Mary discovers another boy, Colin, hidden away in the depths of the mansion, she learns that her uncle’s wife died in childbirth. Bitter over what he sees as the cause of his wife’s death, and believing that the boy will inherit his hunchback, Craven has him treated as an invalid who will never walk.

Colin is as spiteful and haughty as Mary was when she first came to Yorkshire, but together with Dickon’s help, and the ambiance of the garden,  Mary cures him in both mind and body, and everyone is very, very happy, as well they should be.

As usual, the Ridgefield group is doing a terrific job, with fine acting, beautiful voices, and sure-handed direction by Missy Slaymaker-Hanlon.

My issue is with the play itself. This probably puts me in a minority, because the show garnered a bunch of awards when it premiered on Broadway in 1991, including several Tonys, and plenty of rave reviews touting its originality and depth. Nonetheless I have several problems with it.

One is what the playwright did with the story in turning it into a stage musical. It begins with the scene in India when Mary’s parents, their friends, and her ayah all die of cholera, leaving her a solitary orphan found in an abandoned bungalow by a frightened British officer. Director Slaymaker-Hanlon handles this creatively, having the adults dance gaily about the small stage, tossing white handkerchiefs. When the handkerchiefs turn scarlet, it signifies they have died.

That’s effective, but then all the dead people remain for the rest of the evening, flitting about the Yorkshire countryside. This is because (as Mary’s Uncle Archibald sort of explains) the dead are still with us, because we think about them a lot.

The emphasis on dead people, in a story in which two of the main characters are children who have lost their mothers, is pressed even further when Colin spends a lot of time screaming that he is going to die.

His dead mother, Lily, periodically steps down from her picture on the wall to give him longingly loving looks, but being a ghost as well, she can’t interact with him. She sings, but he doesn’t hear it.

Another of the playwright’s innovations is to invent the character of Craven’s younger brother, Neville, a physician who gave up his practice and moved into the house after the double tragedy of the mother’s death and the boy’s apparent defects. In fact, Neville is a villain, who is rendering Colin helpless by keeping him sedated (with a large needle) and having him confined to bed or a wheelchair at all times.

Neville’s hope is that Colin will eventually die, Archibald will commit suicide from despair, and then he, the younger brother, will inherit the great estate. When he realizes that Mary has made contact with her cousin, Neville schemes to have her sent away to a Victorian school for orphans, where the girls are taught to make lace.

This is introducing an element of evil into the story that does not need to be there. Furthermore, it isn’t even dealt with. When the happy ending finally comes (after two plus hours of ghost flitting) Archibald merely tells Neville “I think you ought to go back to practicing medicine.”

All of these issues make me wonder about whether it is really such a great show to bring kids to- and of course that’s who will be taken to see it. I mean, I don’t picture many adults going to see it on their own, even if they remember loving it in fifth grade.

There were a lot of children in the audience when we were there, and they seemed pretty contented, but they also spent a lot of time staring fixedly at their pizza. (One of the nice things about the Theater Barn is that you bring your own food.)

Anyhow, as I said, there is definitely a lot of talent here. My two favorites were Jimmy Bain, who was the absolute living incarnation of Dickon from the pages of Burnett’s book, and Rachel Rothman-Cohen as his sister Martha. Hers wasn’t the largest part, but she radiated kindness and warmth and indignation, again, just as the character I remembered from the book.

Allie Short does a fine job as the contrary Mistress Mary, and Trevor Carr, who performed the night we went, was a highly credible Colin. Theater Barn regular Stephen Dirocco has a beautiful voice, and turns Archibald into a poignant figure whose decency trumps his depression, while James Stanley also sings very well in the role of the villainous Neville.

Rachel Corn is luminously beautiful as Lily, and Pat Halbert has fun with the part of the mean school mistress Mrs Winthrop.

I guess in the long run you can decide if your children would enjoy this. If they like to be scared, it’s a lot better than Saw V, but bring a lot of food along. And some liquid refreshment for yourself might be good.

(Performances continue weekends until December 7.

See the Enjoy calendar or call 203-431-9850 for schedule details; reservations are also available through that phone number.)