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Still sowing "Garden's" seeds of happiness

By Misha Berson
Seattle Times theater critic

CHRIS BENNION Hans Altwies, left, as Dickon Sowerby, Sharia Pierce as Mary Lennox and Seán Griffin as Ben Weatherstaff in Seattle Children's Theatre's "The Secret Garden."

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It is a simple story, really.

A young British girl raised in India is orphaned and packed off to live with a rich widowed uncle in his gloomy Yorkshire mansion.

The girl, Mary Lennox, is lonely and adrift — until she discovers a hidden, untended flower garden.

With the help of a local lad, Dickon, Mary revives the garden's floral splendor. And through contact with nature, she eases her grief and helps her ailing young cousin, Colin, return to health.

An Edwardian fairy tale about the healing powers of friendship, nature and positive thinking, Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1910 novel "The Secret Garden" blossomed quickly into a children's literary classic.

In her introduction to a modern Penguin edition of the novel, novelist Alison Lurie termed it "one of the most original and brilliant children's books of [the 20th] century."

It also has proven to be one of the most adaptable, dramatically. The 1991 Broadway musical "The Secret Garden," with a Tony Award-winning book and lyrics by Marsha Norman, and music by Lucy Simon, began a stand at Issaquah's Village Theatre Thursday night and moves to Everett Performing Arts Center in January.

And next week Seattle Children's Theatre unveils the U.S. premiere of a nonmusical version of "The Secret Garden," by Canadian authors Michael Shamata and Paula Wing.

Theater preview "The Secret Garden," by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, runs through Jan. 2, 2005, Village Theatre, 303 Front St. N., Issaquah; $32-$45 (425-392-2202 or www.villagetheatre.org). It also plays Jan. 7-23, 2005, at Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave., Everett; $26-$42 (425-257-8600). "The Secret Garden," by Michael Shamata and Paula Wing, plays Nov. 19, 2004-Jan. 8, 2005 at Seattle Children's Theatre, 201 Thomas St., Seattle Center; $14-$28 (206-441-3322 or www.sct.org).

With its picturesque setting, plucky protagonist and misty whimsicality, "The Secret Garden" has bred a number of cinematic adaptations — including a 1949 Hollywood version starring popular child-star Margaret O'Brien and a dark-hued, 1993 film from noted Polish director Agnieszka Holland.

There's also a "Secret Garden Cookbook" inspired by the novel, and even a Secret Garden bed-and-breakfast inn in Eugene, Ore.

Burnett's fantasy of transcending despair in a rose-covered English Eden has rooted itself in the minds of legions of children (most of them girls, alas) who've read the book, and succumbed to its musty, comforting charms.

Engrossing too is Burnett's own story, revealed in a new biography by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, "Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of the Secret Garden."

Though her children's novels (also: "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "A Little Princess") sealed her fame, the prolific Burnett dashed off popular tales for adults as well.

Born in England in 1849, the writer (like her character Mary Lennox) was an impassioned gardener. She was also keenly ambitious, independent and financially astute for a woman of her era — yet troubled by the early loss of her father, the "genteel" poverty of much of her youth, her two miserable marriages (and divorces) and the loss of a beloved teenage son, Lionel, to consumption.

Some literary critics of her day accused Burnett of specializing in sentimental mush. But she once stated, "With the best I have in me, I have tried to write more happiness into the world."

She would surely be pleased by the happiness "The Secret Garden" has spread, after nearly a century in print, and many decades on stage and screen.

The lushly scored Broadway musical, which dreamily mingles living characters with ghost figures, was last produced professionally in Seattle at the 5th Avenue, in 1999.

Directed by Brian Yorkey, the Village's current rendition features local middle-school students in the prime roles of Mary (played, alternately, by Rachel Beck and Caitlin Kinnunen) and Colin (Josh Froebe).

SCT's nonmusical retelling of the tale, under Rita Giomi's direction, had its world premiere in 1993 at Theatre New Brunswick. In Seattle, the script's youthful parts will be covered by adults: talented fringe actor Sharia Pierce is Mary, and Shakespeare veteran Hans Altwies appears as Dickon.

But any staging of "The Secret Garden" worth its soil must conjure that English country garden. It rests with scenic designers Carey Wong at the Village and Matthew Smucker at SCT to convince us that the secluded haven Mary finds is a special plot indeed — one that can bloom and flourish before our eyes.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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