A Treat for all in this Garden of
Delights
Review by Michael Coveney Daily Mail 29/11/2000
The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon: Royal Shakespeare
Theater, Statford-upon-Avon
Stratford has the prettiest Christmas lights of any town in Britain.
Walking round the streets, you could be in one of the RSC's sweeter more glowing productions.
Inside the main theatre Adrian Noble has pulled off a seasonal coup by rejuvenating a tired old Broadway musical of nine years ago as the first family treat of the season.
Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel is of course, a childrens classic. It touches on all sorts of fears and fads. A roomy old house in Yorkshire, a crippled boy who learns to walk, gardening, healthy diets and adults re-educated in fine feelings by their children.
Mary Lennox has lost both parents to cholera in India. She returns to her uncle's house on the cruel moors and discovers her little cousin, Colin locked in a room with his tantrums. Basically they relax, let the spring sunshine and home grown vegetation into their lives' abetted by a friendly old gardener - beautifully played by Freddie 'Parrot Face' Davies.
The RSC has three pairs of children for these roles. Last night's couple, Natalie Morgan and Luke Newberry, were triumphantly almost embarrassingly good.
The unlocking of the garden corresponds with a growing sense of love, happiness, and so on, and the music, by Carly Simon's sister Lucy, is suitably engorged.
Philip Quast is outstanding as the hunchbacked uncle, Dilys Laye - what a trouper! - entirely cherishable as the sour Mrs Medlock.
There is some wonderful choreography by Gillian Lynne, especially her come-alive hoe-down for the gardeners maideservants and their implements.
Miss Norman brings the ghosts of the dead parents into action, and reduces the role of Martha for talented Linzi Hateley.
Poor Miss Hateley must wonder what she has ever done to upset Stratford. She last appeared here in the catastrophic Carrie.
This is by no means a disaster, and nearly the opposite.
The designs of Anthony Ward light and colourful, are a delight, especially
when the stage fills with the greenery of spring and a cascade of pink roses in
the secret garden.
'CHARM AND DELIGHT BY THE BARROW-LOAD'
Review by Dominic Cavendish from the DAILY TELEGRAPH, 30/11/2000
Frances Hodgson Burnett started out in the Victorian slums of Salford, then emigrated at the age of 16 with her family to Tennessee. Curiously, it has taken two Americans, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Marsha Norman and composer Lucy Simon, to recognise that The Secret Garden, one of the novelist's best-loved works, would make a fantastic musical.
Nine years after it stormed Broadway scooping a Tony Award for best book, their version has undertaken the return transatlantic journey at the behest of RSC supremo Adrian Noble, who gives us a strong contender for Christmas treat of the year.
You would think that this musical would droop towards the sentimental and the saccharine. Ten year old Mary Lennox, orphaned in India and sent to a remote North Yorkshire manor, could easily be a limelight-stealing brat (think Annie!) - first too sour, then too sweet. Coming into contact with plain-speaking folk and her counterpoint in irascibility, sick cousin Colin, she blossoms amid the high-walled surroundings of her hunchback uncle Archibald's secret garden.
What Norman and Simon have realised is that the book's trajectory from self-centredness to selflessness is not peculiar to the child heroine, but entails a shared experience that cuts across ages. They have widened the focus to include Archibald, unable to stop mourning the death of his wife Lily, and his brother Neville, who harboured unrequited love for her.
The repressed English character of the early 20th century - a private hell of secrecy and isolation - is confronted with a sunnier, can-do temperament born of contact with the soil. Simon's music nourishes this healing process: it's folksy flutings and pounding rhythms evoke primitive rituals, softened by undulating strings. Maudlin solos are woven together into choruses; the voices of the dead mingle with those of the living. Of course, it's wish-fulfilment, but that is what finally gives the rejuvenatory pulse its heartbreaking quality.
You could quarrel that the horticultural metaphor is overused - there's one too many innocent references to planting seeds and biding your time. Fidgeting may occur during the wet-as-April-showers sequences in which the nature-loving estate hand Dickon warbles on about the coming of spring.
But it's hard to fault a show that has charm in spades and delight by the barrow-load. Gillian Lynne's sure choreographic touch is felt throughout from the swirling, multi-coloured hive of saris at the start to the boot-slapping leaps and shuffles of the undergardeners and their housemaid partners in the curtain-call reprise.
Even the manor doors have a balletic elegance, spinning magically towards us in a stately threesome. Anthony Ward's design makes the most of the main stage's cramped space: the mazy garden sprawl is succinctly suggested by sliding transparent screens daubed with foliage.
Noble keeps the pace up by using the chorus of house staff to shift furniture on and off almost unnoticed. In vocal terms, the production scintillates: Philip Quast's Archibald and Peter Polycarpou's Neville sound as sturdy as oaks, and Craig Purnell's Dickon has a springy timbre to match his capering.
The piece inevitably stands or falls on the strength of the two children's
performances. The parts are being divvied up among a number of young hopefuls,
but if they're all anywhere near as good as Natalie Morgan's Mary and Luke
Newberry's Colin, there will be no disappointments. With hardly a trace of
staginess, they show us the highs and lows of childhood, the liberties taken
and freedoms denied. The petticoats and knickerbockers may no longer be in
fashion, but the sense of budding possibility hits you like a gust of fresh air
scented with moorland.
THE SECRET GARDEN **** rating
Royal Shakespeare Theatre,
Review by Robert Gore-Langton The Daily Express 1/12/2000
For a couple of years it's been The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe up at Stratford as the seasonal treat and it did well, despite the bigger game on offer in The Lion King.
Now the RSC has junked the animals and is fielding an all-human musical (give or take a robin). This time it's Frances Hodgson Burnett's THE SECRET GARDEN still a firm family favourite after 90 years.
The story is about Mary Lennox, a spoilt brat who returns as an orphan from India to live in her uncle's mansion on the Yorkshire moors where the wind wuthers and the sets wobble. She chums up with a local boy, Dickon, and discovers that she has a bad-tempered, bedridden cousin, Colin. She also finds a secret garden.
With the help of Dickon she restores the place and, as she does so, little Colin starts to get better. By the end, you have all sorts of emotional awakenings, miraculous healings and banished fears. As is the way with family shows, you sob, you gasp, you yawn here and there and you eat a lot of smarties, but the great strength of Adrian Noble's production is that the two children in it are quite brilliant. On the first night, Natalie Morgan (Mary) and Luke Newberry (Colin) played off each other superbly and, boy, do they know how to throw a tantrum. If this is method-acting based on their experience of home life, I wouldn't want to be their parents.
The older generation is superb, too. Philip Quast as the grieving uncle dominates both halves of the show and Peter Polycarpou bristles as the dour doctor. There's a memorably sour performance from Dilys Laye as the grumpy housekeeper, Mrs Medlock and - in complete contrast - Freddie "parrot face" Davies is bliss as the cuddly old gardener. When are we going to see him cast as Malvolio or Dogberry?
But is the musical itself any cop? Not really. Originally a Broadway show, there's a lot wrong with Marsha Norman's book, one of the key irritations being the constant and confusing reappearance of the uncle's deceased love, a beautiful spook. Lucy Simon's music is rather repetitious, the songs (with hints of Cat Stevens, Sweeney Todd and The Hired Man) detaining us too often in the second act which needs to shed about 30 minutes. Gillian Lynne's choreography works best when she has the legion of gardeners doing a hoe-down.
Still, it is a family show with plenty to sock you in the eye. Anthony
Ward's sets with actors in Edwardian costume conjure up a world of starchy
isolation. There are storms to frighten the kiddies, the arrival of spring to
delight us and a tale of human healing to lift the heart. It's a great bet for
a family outing and a triumph for the RSC - not least because it's a silk purse
made from a pig's ear.
The Secret Garden
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Review By Kate Bassett
Independent on Sunday Dec 3, 2000
Finally, the RSC's family show for Christmas 2000 is a musical adaptation of
The Secret Garden, directed by Adrian Noble with some classy production values
and several charmingly funny performances. The girl-heroine of Frances Hodgson
Burnett's classic Edwardian tale starts in an oddly parallel situation to
Churchill's Joan. Little Mary Lennox tosses and turns in her wrought iron bed.
Orphaned and shipped back to wintry Yorkshire from India, she has become the
ward of gloomy Uncle Archibald; in his mansion on the moors, spooky cries
pierce the night.
But, of course, things get better here as Mary - initially bitter and frostily imperious with the servants - warms up and learns the local lingo of her own volition. She goes on to find the buried key to her late Aunt Lily's abandoned garden, tends its roses, sees them bloom when spring arrives, and persuades her uncle's grief-stricken heart to mend.
Marsha Norman's book and lyrics - though occasionally banal - admirably explore how people cope with death and loss and can heal with love. Lucy Simon's score, though quite a hit on Broadway, didn't exactly make me jump for joy. The intermeshing of American-style show tunes with English (well, actually, more Irish) folk music can be awkward. CraigPurnell, as Mary's playmate Dickon, sings with a veering New Yorkshire accent.
Still, elsewhere sweet harmonies and operatic ghostly ululations join
forces thrillingly, and Philip Quast's Archibald is touching simply modulating
a bedtime fairy tale into a restorative lullaby. Natalie Morgan who plays
Mary (in rotation with two other children) is terrifically assured and never
self-consciously cute. Her beastly strops are splendid.
Production lets musical Bloom
The Secret Garden Review By Pat Ashworth The Stage 07/12/2000
Superlatives are not enough to describe Adrian Noble's exquisite RSC production
at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, reaching deep into the soul and receiving a
standing ovation. This musical version by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon uses an
exuberant, brilliantly choreographed chorus of household staff to paint the
changing seasons and the daily life of house and garden.
Swift visual narrative whisks the action from the chaos of cholera to the oppression of Misselthwaite Manor. Three freestanding mahogany doors rotate in their own silent ballet to give the illusionof the echoing corridors through which Mary seeks the crying Colin. The misty garden is coolly depicted in a sliding interchange of tall, glass panels, so that the warm appearance of pink roses at the finale is pure joy.
There is beauty and anguish in soaring, sublime performances from Philip Quast as the tormented Archibald Craven and Meredith Braun as the ghost of Lily Craven. Peter Polycarpou is the darkly villainous Neville Craven.
But there is an abundance of comedy and drollery too, in Craig Purnell's shock-headed Dickon, Freddie Davis' dour Ben Weatherstaff, Linzi Hateley's bubbly Martha and Dilys Laye's brusque Mrs Medlock.
Natalie Morgan is outstanding - born to be Mary Lennox from the determined set of her jaw to her precise and ironic articulation. Her tantrums are glorious. Luke Newberry is an utterly winsome Colin.
As for the music, it is so fluid that there is no breaking into the big numbers. Speech just imperceptibly slips into song to give continuity and clarity to the whole. It is altogether breathtaking.
Click on all four Stage Door pics to see larger images.
- Drama of unexpected sickness
- From BIRMINGHAM POST January 6th, 2001
Philip Quast, appearing in Stratford-upon-Avon as Archbishop Craven in The Secret Garden, is well aware of the need to take care of his voice.
He has twice won the Olivier Award for best male performance and has a long range of credits with the RSC.
He is 43 and lives in London with his wife and their three children.
'Illness is the greatest fear for any actor - we are all obsessed by it. Actors talk about 'my voice' as if it was a third person.
'I've just missed about eight performances because of a chest infection. Illness always sweeps through the cast, just like in a school, as we're working so closely together.
'You worry about going back too soon and causing more harm to your voice, but if you leave it too long, the fear builds up.
'I'm in a musical at the moment, which is the most physically demanding type of production to do. It also becomes harder as you get older and less fit.
'Of course, there are lots of old wives' tales going around. I know actors who go on stage with lozenges tucked under their lips. It's a purely psychological thing - but then it can turn into a dentistry problem.
'The irony is that the voice is the thing we have to look after the most, but then abuse because of the lifestyle we lead.
'One of the big problems is eating late at night after shows and going to the pub. But actors are frequently away from home and family, so that is all they have.
'And the more demanding roles tend to carry more stress and lead to drinking or smoking too much.
'But most of the people at the top of their field are very disciplined - they would not be in that position otherwise.
'I eat healthily, keep fit and steam every day. It's always at the back of your mind - you can be at the pub and feel your voice is getting slightly weaker and you know it is time to go home.
' The Secret Garden is at the Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon until January 27.
We would like to thank Verity for providing us with this article.
- Robert Lindsey (the actor) on The Secret Garden.
- Evening Standards Hot Tickets Magazine 15 February 2001
'I went to the opening night of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Secret Gardenin Stratford last November - and loved it. They haven't gone for big sets and effects - it is done very simply and, although it is a musical, it is not taken over by too much music. This is the Royal Shakespeare Company's first musical for more than ten years, and it's produced in the traditional way, with dialogue between the songs. Based on Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic novel, it has a great story.
They haven't tried to make it into something modern and that is part of the reason it has been so successful. But also the children's performances are astounding. We all sat there saying, where did they get these kids from? And there are also wonderful performances from Freddy Davies as the gardener, Craig Purnell as Dickon and Linzi Hateley as the maid.
I like the way they cover the dark side of the story, the way the little girl loses her family - but even so they don't make it so dark that children can't go and see the play. You come out feeling great - like you have had a wonderful evening. I would definitely say it was a "worth your money show" - lets face it theatre tickets are not cheap.
I can see why The Secret Garden broke all box-office records in
Stratford where it opened with advance sales of over £1 million. I hope it
does as well in London.'
THE SECRET GARDEN
Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford-upon-Avon
Review by Eridge Ogilvy Issue 26 Musical Stages
THE last RSC musical I saw at Stratford was Carrie I’ll say no more! So,
as my car started to sound distinctly unwell on the M40, I wondered if my trip
to the latest RSC musical would be worth all the effort. I am thrilled to say
that it was. The Secret Garden has reached our shores, after many years’
wait, in the best of health thanks to the marvellous team of Adrian Noble
(director), Gillian Lynne (choreographer) and Anthony Ward (designer), and it
is without doubt one of the most charming and heart warming musicals I have
ever seen.
The story, based on the children’s classic by Frances Hodgson Burnett, is well known to millions. Orphan Mary Lennox is sent to live on the bleak Yorkshire Moors with her bereaved uncle, crippled cousin and a gang of country folk. The garden of the title is the catalyst to bring all the stories together and enables the children to teach the adults a few things about love and emotions.
The music of Lucy Simon (sister of Carly) is simply divine. From soaring ballads to folksy country dances, she triumphs throughout. I only wished the RSC had the foresight to print a list of the songs in their programme - very frustrating when you are trying to write a review!
Philip Quast is superb as the reclusive Uncle Archibald, and his pain and anguish convincingly touch the hearts of all the audience. When the ghost of his wife Lily - played by Meredith Braun with the most glorious of soprano voices - tells him that he must let go of her and move on with his life, the sound of the audience sniffling in unison was louder than a herd of grazing wildebeeste! Linzi Hately is a sheer delight as the maid Martha, and once I’d got over the fact that bickon was not a 12 year old boy but a 62” carrot-topped Craig Purnell, I enjoyed his exuberant and very likeable performance. Of course the leading roles in The Secret Garden belong to the children, and on press night Natalie Morgan (with a voice from Heaven) played Mary and cute Luke Newberry was the crippled Cohn. Two wonderful old troopers onstage were Freddie bavies as Ben the gardener and bilys Laye as nasty housekeeper, Mrs Medlock. Both totally enchanting, and bringing a bit of comedy to the proceedings. What a shame they didn’t have a song together - in Act 2 there was a perfect opportunity sadly missed by the writers.
The only disappointing performance was that of Peter Polycarpou as the wicked doctor, Neville Craven. He seemed to be milking what was honestly a supporting role for all it was worth, and the result was a fairly large cut of ham! With Gillian Lynne as choreographer you couldn’t really go wrong. Her boys’ gardeners dance in Act 1 got a rousing round from the audience, and the spring number in Act 2 was inventive and energetic. Anthony Ward’s design incorporated the best use of minimalism in a period musical I have seen - wait till you’ve seen the three big wooden doors and you’ll understand exactly what I mean.
When the curtain comes down at the end of the show there is not a dry eye in the house. I am pleased to report that my car managed to get me safely back to London a trip that The Secret Garden will be taking early next year.
Photograph by Manuel Harlan
We would like to thank Lynda Trapnell for allowing us to up load this review on to the site. If you want to know more about Musical Stages magazine visit the website. www.musicalstages.co.uk
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