The Cheyenne Little Theatre is staging The Secret Garden: An Award-Winning Musical on weekends from May 3 to May 19, 2019.
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| David Hall as Archibald Craven and Rachel West as Mary Lennox. Photo courtesy Cheyenne Little Theatre |
I went to see The Secret Garden on Thursday, May 9, 2019. Every CLTP production, currently, costs $22 for adults. On a certain Thursday during the run, they have a $10 special - and that's the evening I choose to go see their productions!
Whenever I go see a play that I'm not familiar with, I always check the synopsis at Wikipedia. I do this even if it's a mystery (my plays of choice, actually). Although the book by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a classic (written in 1911!), I've never read it, so of course I checked it out.
The musical version of the book has book (i.e., script) and lyrics by Marsha Norman, and music by Lucy Simon. It was first produced in 1989 in Norfolk, VA and went on to Broadway in 1999, where it played for two years (709 performances.)
The Set
According to the write-up on the Broadway production of The Secret Garden in Wikipedia, "the set resembled a an enormous Victorian toy theatre with pop-out figures, large paper dolls, and Joseph Cornell-like collage elements."
Other critics/theatre writers saw the set differently.
According to Mark Robinson Writes, for example, the set [had] "Valentine decoupage-inspired scenery by Heidi Landesman (now Ettinger) that dreamily evoked mystical environs while keeping the action suggestively planted in a gloomy Yorkshire mansion."
I bring that up just because I found it interesting, not because the Little Theatre set could compare in any way to that production's.
YOUTUBE
For a few years now, the CLTP has been putting video 'trailers' up on YouTube for each of its productions - only about 30 seconds long. This is the first time I've seen a 'Behind the Scenes' video. It's eight minutes long. Their are interviews with the child actors, with some footage of Mary Hall directing.
Behind the Scenes:
The Trailer:
The Company
A couple of the men in the ensemble cast - as the play opened in India, were a little flat in delivering dialog, but when they reappeared as ghosts for the rest of the play and sang, they improved.
Brad Goodman as Mary Lennox's father, Albert, delivered a touching performance in dialog as well as song.
David Hall played Mary Lennox's hunchback uncle, Archibald. Jason Gilbert was excellent as his brother and Mary's other, villainous uncle, Neville. (I'm still not sure if Neville actually was deliberately a villain or if he was just deceiving himself that Colin - Archie's son - did have some kind of illness. But he certainly was not nice to Mary!)
A Staging Note
The duet of Lily's Eyes, where it is revealed that both Archie and Neville loved the same woman (the dead Lily - who is a ghost in the house and who, tellingly, never appears to Neville) is staged with each actor at the opposite end of the stage. This was annoying as you had to take your eyes off one to look at the other.
This staging was not unique to the CLTP's production - I've watched a few videos today at YouTube and it's apparently always done like that.
The question I asked myself at the time was, Why not just have them stand back to back (slightly turned to convey the illusion that they don't see or hear each other) so the audience could see both tortured men emote and sing at the same time!
It was quite powerful and I heard a couple of people behind me whisper that reaction to each other as well.
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| The ghosts from India, and Lily (Karen Hinkle) surround Archibald (Dave Hall), Mary Lennox (Rebecca West) and Dickon (Conner Fertig), Martha (Katherine Reidl) and gardener Ben Weatherstaff (Jeff Tish) |
Jason Gilbert had the best [male] voice in the company. David Hall sang well but was not at the same level. That's not a criticism of Hall - he too gave a very touching performance as the hunchbacked Archie. Gilbert does good "smugness."
Of the women in the cast, the voices of Karen Hinkle as Lily and Katherine Reidl as Martha were excellent. (Not surprisingly, the best singers, male and female, have the principle roles!)
There were two child actors alternating roles for Mary Lennox.
In the production I saw, Mary Lennox was played by young Rachel West, who did an excellent job. But from one standpoint, the actor I was most impressed with was the even younger Michael Weisbrook, who played Colin. Although a few of his bursts of anger were good, most of the time he was just reciting his lines with a single inflection - but the kid couldn't have been more than 8 years old (according to his bio he's in the 2nd grade) and to have all those lines memorized and to appear on stage in front of a hundred people and say 'em when required was extreeeeeemely impressive.
CLTP productions rarely disappoint - The Secret Garden, directed by Mary Hall - was no exception.
Trivia Time
As a side note...why are maids always named Martha? Because there was a Martha in the Bible who always had to do all the work and was foolish enough to complain to Jesus that her sister should have been helping her! Jesus was not sympathetic. (Guess what, people - if there'd been no Marthas you wouldn't have been fed and would have been housed in squalor. Marthas get a bad rap! (Yes, I'm talking to you, Agatha Christie!))
