How does your garden grow?
Thus goes an old English nursery rhyme which might well have been the seed from which sprouted the novel, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, from which, in turn, bloomed the musical play that bears the same title. The show, with book and lyrics by Marsha Norman and music by Lucy Simon, who are both Americans, can’t get any more English than Big Ben, the cliffs of Dover or kidney pie.
The Secret Garden is Repertory Philippines’ choice to crown its 63rd Theatre Season. It will run weekends at the William J. Shaw Theatre, Shangri-La Plaza Mall, until Dec. 2, and at the Carlos P. Romulo Theater, RCBC Plaza, until Dec. 15.
What is the formula that makes a musical play a sure-fire hit on Broadway?
Get the plot from a well-loved novel like Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist or Burnett’s book which has a large following among young readers. Orphans make loveable principal characters, like Oliver and Annie. The Secret Garden has Mary Lennox (Charlie Barredo; alternates: Mazie Cajucom, Camille Cabrera) who has as much spice as sugar so that she does not become cloyingly sweet.
Begin her story in India during the glorious era of the British Empire – which Rudyard Kipling wrote so much about in his books. There’s nothing more than a touch of the exotic, mysterious East to stir the imagination, eh wot?
Mary’s parents, Captain Albert Lennox (Jeremy Aguado; alternate: Lorenz Martinez) and Rose Lennox (Cathy Azanza) have been carried off by the cholera. The orphan is shipped back to England and placed under the care of her uncle, Archibald Craven (Michael Williams; alternate: Noel Rayos).
Add now a touch of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Archibald’s Misselthwaite Manor is in a remote part of the country at the edge of the moors. Mary does not feel at ease with another uncle, Dr. Neville Craven (Raul Montesa; alternate: Ryan Flores). She finds a friend, however, in the housemaid, Martha (Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo; alternate: Lani Mabilangan-Ligot) who attends to her needs. She also meets the old gardener, Ben Weatherstaff (Miguel Faustmann), and the lad, Dickon (Noel Rayos; alternate: Topper Fabregas). From them she comes to know about the secret garden.
There is more than meets the eye in this manor – the musty air of the English Gothic novel, like The Mystery of Udolfo or The Castle of Otranto. Mary discovers the existence of Uncle Archibald’s ailing son, Colin (Bianx Morris; alternates: Hans Dimayuga, Richmond Wesley Tan). The boy is a cripple and is believed to be dying. He makes everyone around him miserable including Mrs. Medlock (Joy Virata), the housekeeper. Mary’s initial contact with him is a nasty affair that enrages the invalid and threatens the apparent serenity of the household.
There is a deeper secret in Misselthwaite. It is about Archibald’s late wife, Lily (Karla Gutierrez; alternate: Marissa Santos-Borlaza). Her untimely death from childbirth leaves her husband utterly inconsolable and plunges the manor, including Dr. Craven who has also loved her, into a state of grief that refuses to heal.
But is Lily really gone to her eternal rest? Her spirit lingers on in the manor like the scent of flowers that had faded long ago in her secret garden. She appears to her ailing son in his dreams and sings his pain away.
And she is not the lone unseen presence in the house. The unhallowed halls teem with restless ghosts. Ayah, Mary’s Indian amah (Jay Valencia-Glorioso), the Fakir (Elver Esquivel; alternate: Oliver Usison), Major Holmes (Meynard Peñalosa), Lieutenant Wright (Arnel Carrion), Lieutenant Shaw (Lorenz Martinez), Major Shelley (John Mulhall), Timothy (Allan Dale Alojipan), Mrs. Shelley (Shiela Valderrama), Alice (Myrene Hernandez) and Rose and Albert Lennox who altogether form a phantom Greek chorus.
Ghosts? Why not? England, more than any other country on earth, is littered with ghosts. The Tower of London is haunted by the spirits of the two young princes and of the queen of a thousand days, Anne Boleyn, so it is whispered about. The banks of the Thames are haunted by the spirits of the unhappy lovers who have thrown themselves into its murky waters. What can keep a drowsy audience awake in their seats better than ghostly apparitions? Shakespeare wrote Macbeth for a Scottish king of England who had no patience for theater and he showed him the bloody ghost of Banquo to keep him wide awake.
Well, if one ghost could keep His Royal Highness’ eyelids from drooping, why not a whole gallery of ghosts to keep the attention of a plebeian audience? Which is precisely what The Secret Garden manages to do with flair – and with music. They are the Dreamers, a word less scary than ghosts or phantoms.
Fill the show with the music of Lucy Simon. Her songs bear the quality of late-Victorian music with a touch of the folk ballads of the countryside.
With Martha’s Ditty and If I had a Fine White Horse, Menchu goes to town – figuratively of course – and wins not only Mary’s attention but her affection as well. The show’s show-stopping number has to be the duet Lily’s Eyes, which Williams and Gutierrez deliver with passionate intensity. Round-Shouldered Man is a grotesque little tune that Charlie, Bianx and Jay carry off with ingratiating charm. (Charlie does not look like a 10-year-old which Mary is, but her admirers are not likely to quibble. She is a genuine talent.) Karla’s radiant soprano soars most beautifully in Come to My Garden which she sings with Bianx. This is a dream song in more sense than one.
The musical contribution of vocal coach Mulhall who also serves as repetiteur along with Benjie Dia and musical arranger Pipo Cifra deserves special mention. The choreography is by Jaime del Prado.
Throw into this musical play a variety of styles – a touch of the classical in the Greek chorus, of the surreal in the dreamy ambience of the setting, of local color in the Yorkshire landscape of the moor and heather and of contemporary magical realism. And not least of all, symbolism, which raises the question: What does the secret garden signify?
In their directors’ notes, Zeneida Amador and Baby Barredo opine: "The play has much to say about the redemptive power of love and friendship, and the discovery of the secret garden which is really inside all of us – the secret garden of love, of goodness, and of truth, and the healing power of nature."
And finally, to make this musical a smashing hit, give it a happy end. Mary learns to be not so contrary after all as in the nursery rhyme. Her loving care nurses Colin to health. The boy leaves his wheelchair to the joy of Martha, Dickon and Ben. Archibald returns from his self-exile in Paris and sends instead his brother, Dr. Craven, to the City of Lights. Mary and her friends have weeded all the thistles and brambles from their garden to make it bloom in full splendor.
Amador and Barredo have left no stones unturned and have exhausted their bags of theatrical tricks to make The Secret Garden one damned bloody hell of a good show.
Good show, eh wot?