The Secret Garden
April 18 through May 4, 2003
Directed by Michael Anthony and Will Neblett. Book and lyrics by Marsha Norman. Music by Lucy Simon. Based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Reviews

By Rob Hopper,
San Diego Playbill

Based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel, Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon (Carly Simon’s sister) transformed The Secret Garden into a Tony Award-winning musical overgrown with some of the most beautiful and haunting music ever. San Diego Junior Theatre, under the excellent co-directionof Michael Anthony and Will Neblett, has brought together an all-star cast of many of the finest vocal talents and performers in local youth theatre to make these songs soar as high as they should.

Shannon Partrick reprises her role as young Mary Lennox, which she played last year in La Jolla Stage Company’s sublime production. Living all her life on an estate in India, the young English girl is suddenly orphaned when cholera decimates the entire household – except her. She finds herself in a strange and desolate land (the moors of Yorkshire, England), moving into the home of her reclusive, hunchbacked Uncle Archibald Craven (Trevor Hollingsworth) who does not want her, and who is afraid to talk to her, leaving Mary to wonder aloud if she possibly has any other family to go live with!

At first spoiled, smart-alecky, angry, and “quite contrary,” Mary begins to find some beauty in the world. She is aided by the sassy servant Martha (Jacqueline Lopez) with a heavy Yorkshire accent and a disposition that nicely and amusingly counters Mary’s attitude. Martha encourages her to play with her brother Dickon (Gordon McLachlan) who has a way with all living things – including the ability to talk with the animals. Her new friends, an ensemble of the ghosts of her family in India and of her Aunt Lily (Uncle Archibald’s wife who died during childbirth), and the lure of Aunt Lily’s “secret garden” that is hidden behind a large wall that has been shut since Lily’s death, all combine to make her enjoy this new life she has begun, and to want others to enjoy it too. Including her withdrawn Uncle Archibald and her cousin Colin (Kiefer Shackelford) whom she finds laid up in bed where Archibald’s brother, Dr. Neville Craven (Ryan Wagner), keeps him confined and has him convinced that he is mortally sick and will be hunchbacked like his father Archibald.

The voices are all remarkable. As the ghost of Lily, Stephanie Ward, recently seen in the title role of Miss Nelson is Missing and as a hilariously wicked stepsister in Cinderella, has a stunning operatic voice that joins with her niece Mary and her widowed husband Archibald in I Heard Someone Crying, joins her son Colin as she tries to coax himwith Come to My Garden, and in the gorgeous duet with Archibald in How Could I Ever Know. Jacqueline Lopez, the lead from Junior Theatre’s incredible production of Once On This Island, has a strong and beautiful voice that belts out the inspiring Hold On. Trevor Hollingsworth, a Billie winner for his performance as rascally Fagin in last season’s Oliver!, gives a tender and sensitive feel to his songs as the withdrawn and depressed Archibald. Gordon McLachlan is oppositely light and easy as the nature-loving Dickon. Young Kiefer Shackelford, who played Oliver to Trevor’s Fagin, has a strong voice and gives an outstanding performance as the initially ambivalent Colin who gets a little tough love from his newfound cousin Mary. And Shannon Partrick is amazing as the pouty-turned-cheerful-and-inquisitive Mary who turns over several new leaves as she works on her garden – a garden beautifully constructed by Set Designer Jay Heiserman (a Junior Theatre alum).

The ensemble includes great performances by the charming old gardner Ben Weatherstaff (Brian Polk) and the less-than-charming old housekeeper Mrs. Medlock (Tiffany Brown). The ghosts have mesmerizing and appropriately haunting voices, led by Mary’s late parents Rose (Courtney Linton) and Albert (Joey Price). In a visually beautiful touch, the ghosts are always surrounded by a mist that comes and disappears as quickly as they do thanks to precision timing, location, and lighting (by Lighting Designer Matt Novotny – another Junior Theatre alum). With this cast and this music and these visuals, San Diego Junior Theatre’s The Secret Garden is truly a lush and beautiful piece of theatre.