Topic: The Secret Garden (Musical)

Mataya

Date: 2016-05-16 11:24 EST
Cast

Mary Lennox - Mairead Harker/Margaret Lassiter Archibald Craven - Eregor Lily Craven - Yasmin Neville Craven - Arandir Martha - Carina Cox Dickon - Doran Ilnaren Colin Craven - Robert Mallory Ben Weatherstaff - Ben Gates Rose - Debbie Adkins Mrs. Medlock - Alexandra Doyle

Note - Due to the demands of the role, Mary Lennox has been shared between two young performers. Mairead Harker will be performing Monday, Wednesday matinee, Friday, and Saturday evening. Margaret Lassiter will be performing Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday matinee. Margaret Lassiter and Robert Mallory appear courtesy of the Shanachie STARS.

Mataya

Date: 2016-05-16 11:24 EST
Synopsis

Act I

Mary Lennox, a 10-year-old English girl who has lived in India since birth, dreams of English nursery rhymes and Hindi chants ("Opening"). She awakes to learn that her parents and nearly everyone she knew in India, including her Ayah, have died of cholera. Found by survivors of the epidemic (officers who worked alongside her father), Mary is sent back to England to live with her only remaining relations ("There's a Girl").

(Throughout the show, these and other songs are sung by a chorus of ghosts, referred to in the libretto as "dreamers," who serve as narrators and Greek chorus for the action.)

Her mother's sister, Lily, died many years ago. Lily's widower is Archibald Craven, a hunchback who is still overcome by grief. The management of his manor house, Misselthwaite, is largely left to his brother, Dr. Neville Craven. The house is persistently haunted by ghosts (i.e. Lily, Ayah, Fakir, Rose, and Albert Lennox, officers from India, etc.) and spirits of Archibald's and Mary's pasts, due to their holding on to what used to be. The housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock, coldly welcomes Mary to Yorkshire on her arrival ("The House Upon the Hill"). Mary has difficulty sleeping her first night there ("I Heard Someone Crying") as she and Archibald both mourn their losses. The next morning, Mary meets Martha, a young chambermaid who encourages Mary to go play outside by telling her about the surrounding moorland and grounds ("If I Had a Fine White Horse"), in particular, a secret (hidden) garden. Meanwhile, Archibald remains submerged in his memories of Lily ("A Girl In the Valley"), while ghosts waltz to Lily's and Archibald's serenading.

Mary explores the garden, laid out in Victorian style as a topiary maze, as do Ben Weatherstaff, an old gardener, and Martha's brother Dickon ("It's a Maze"), each with a different agenda. Ben tells Mary that the secret garden has been locked since Lily's death, as it reminds Archibald of her. Dickon invokes the spring ("Winter's On the Wing") in a rustic druid-like fashion; he claims to converse with animals and teaches Mary to speak the Yorkshire dialect to an English robin ("Show Me the Key"). The bird leads Mary to the key for the garden, but does not show Mary the door.

Archibald has a formal meeting with his niece, who asks him for a bit of earth ("A Bit of Earth") to plant a garden of her own; he is startled and compares her to Lily for their shared horticultural interests. As the Yorkshire gloom turns to rain and "Shakes the souls of the dead" ("Storm I"), Archibald and his brother Neville both notice that Mary also physically resembles her aunt, with whom both men were in love. ("Lily's Eyes")

As the rain continues, Mary again hears someone crying ("Storm II"), but this time she finds the source: her cousin Colin, confined to bed since his birth, when his mother Lily died. He has been in bed his entire life because Archibald feared that Colin would also become a hunchback. In reality, Colin's spine is perfectly fine but his father is convinced that he has passed on his curse. Colin confides in his cousin his dreams of ("A Round-Shouldered Man") who comes to him at night and reads to him from his book "of all that's good and true". However, just as it seems they have become friends, Neville and Mrs. Medlock burst in and dismiss her angrily, telling her she is never to see Colin again. As the storm reaches its peak, Mary runs outside and finds the door to the garden ("Final Storm").

Act II

Mary has a reverie about ("The Girl I Mean to Be,") with "a place I can go when I am lost." In reality, the garden is like her uncle and Mary herself, neglected and half-wild.

Archibald relates a dream to Neville about seeing Lily and Mary together in the garden. But Neville's dreams are darker: recalling his unrequited love for Lily, Neville wants Archibald to leave Misselthwaite entirely to him. The two brothers' musings are interwoven with ghostly echoes of old arguments between Lily and her sister Rose (Mary's mother) about Archibald's suitability as a prospective husband and father ("Quartet"). At Neville's urging, Archibald leaves for the Continent, pausing only to read a fairy tale to Colin as the boy sleeps ("Race You To the Top of the Morning").

Mary asks Dickon for help with the garden, which appears dead; Dickon explains that it is probably just dormant and that "somewhere there's a single streak of green inside it" ("Wick"). Mary tells Colin about the discovered garden, but he is initially reluctant to go outside until encouraged by a vision of his mother ("Come to My Garden/Lift Me Up"). Mary, Dickon, and Martha clandestinely bring Colin to the garden in a wheelchair. In the garden, the exercise and fresh air begin to make Colin well ("Come Spirit, Come Charm"). The dreamers sing the praises of the renewed garden ("A Bit of Earth (Reprise)").

Back in the house, Mary faces down Neville as he threatens to send her away to boarding school. Martha tells Mary she must ("Hold On")?"when you see a man who's ragin'/And he's jealous and he fears/That you've walked through walls he's hid behind for years..." Mary writes to Archibald ("Letter Song") urging him to come home.

At first Archibald feels defeated and frustrated ("Where In the World"), but Lily's ghost convinces him to return ("How Could I Ever Know"). Entering the garden, he finds Colin completely healthy; in fact, he is beating Mary in a footrace as Archibald walks through the door. Archibald, a changed man, accepts Mary as his own, and the dreamers invite all to "stay here in the garden," as Lily and Mary's parents Albert and Rose promise to look over them for the rest of their days ("Finale").

((And you probably thought I wasn't paying attention to the actors' requests! Leave your experiences here, my lovelies, and do try not to break anything that isn't yours! Have fun!))

Doran Ilnaren

Date: 2016-05-28 12:31 EST
Doran found it interesting to reprise a role he'd performed the previous year, only this time with singing. He wasn't the only reprisal—Maggie and Carina were also returning—and he wondered if they felt the same way. Personally, Doran found that he preferred the musical, but that was mainly because he had a great solo number in "Winter's On The Wing" and he sang it with zest.

Stoop and feel it, stop and hear it Spring, I saaaaaaaaaaaay!

All in all, it was a role that he relished: supportive and uplifting, with a touch of humor. He enjoyed working with both Maggie and Margaret, and with Carina's Martha and Ben as, well, Ben. The lad had to admit to himself that the most enjoyable aspect of the show was playing with the dialect that several characters—mainly Dickon, Martha, and Ben—spoke. It hadn't been so pronounced in the Repertory production, but here it was in full force.

"Well, just tell 'im about y'self and I'll translate into Yorkshire f'ye 'til ye get the way of it."

He practiced with Carina and Ben to make sure they were, as Eregor had put it, "getting their Yorkshire on" properly. Fun times!

(("Winter's On The Wing" from the original Broadway cast album, with John Cameron Mitchell as Dickon))

Eregor

Date: 2016-05-28 15:07 EST
I heard someone singing. Who, tho', could it be? Maybe it was Lily, Calling out to me. Maybe she's not gone So far away as I've been told! I heard someone singing. Maybe it was she.

Archibald Craven's pain touched Eregor's soul in a way that few roles could. He knew that loss of a love far too well, and while he had recovered and loved Rhi completely, there was a part of him that remembered and missed the first love he had known.

* * *

Serena had been a lady of Faerie, daughter of one of the noble Houses. He was recently regenerated, and roaming the myriad realms of existence. They met at a Market, one of those intriguing locales where Faerie and the mortal planes meet and mingle for a time. She smiled when he introduced himself with a bow, and laughed at his little jokes. Their love blossomed from that small beginning and lasted for years, then decades....and, after a wait that Serena despaired would never end, they conceived a child.

That child would never be born. Though their love was true, their life forces proved less so and Serena struggled to carry the baby to term even as she burned out her own spirit. In the end, her strength failed her, and Eregor found himself lost and empty. Her family never blamed him, but that did nothing to ease the ache within his soul and for a long, long time afterwards he felt that melancholy darkness arise whenever his thoughts turned to her.

* * *

It was that haunting sense of loss that drew him to the part of Archibald Craven, and it flavored every note that he sang upon the Shanachie stage. "How in the world, tell me how in the world, can I live without your love" Why on the earth, tell me why on the earth, should I stay now that you are gone?"

Then Lily's song came through Archie's dark reverie, asking for his forgiveness and reminding him that their love was real and would live forever in his heart and in their son, Colin. Eregor had to give Yasmin props for her performance as Lily, and he felt the peace settle over Archie even as he had found it long before in himself.

It was definitely a good show.

Arandir

Date: 2016-05-29 14:08 EST
A couple of days into the current run ...

To say Arandir was confused by his role as Neville Craven was a bit of an understatement. He'd read the novel in preparation for the musical, and he remembered seeing the previous year's performance of the stage drama. He'd even discussed the story ad nauseam with anyone who'd lend an ear, and still he couldn't quite grasp his character's motivations.

Once again, he'd found himself cast as a character who went against everything the young elf believed in. He understood he was playing the part of a man whose broken heart had led him down a dark path, and yet, he could not understand Neville's motivations, especially where Colin was concerned.

It had been fellow actor and friend, Josh Stuart, who he'd finally gone to for advice, when all else had failed.

"You can't think like yourself," Josh had explained, as the two actors discussed the role over lunch in the theater cafe. "Neville Craven is not you. He's let his jealousy blacken his heart until all he can see is his own misery. He doesn't care about anything, but stealing what little happiness he can from his brother."

"But why?" Aran asked further, clearly confused. "I don't understand the theater, Josh. Mataya only hired me because I can sing. Maybe I should resign and do something else," he added, frowning with worry.

"What would you do?" his friend asked, curiously.

"I don't know. I could work in Carina's parents' shop. I know a little about herbs and healing," Aran admitted with an uncertain shrug.

"I thought you loved the theater," Josh pointed out.

"I do! I just ..." Aran trailed off with a sigh, unsure how to explain. Back home in Ilyethlin, there was no such thing as theater, and it was a confusing concept for him still, even after a few years. "Why do I keep getting cast as the ....what do you call it again?"

"The antagonist?" Josh asked with a smile. "You were a fantastic Hook! Everyone could see what fun you were having up there. What's different about this?"

"It just doesn't feel right to me," Aran replied, worriedly. "Maybe you should take my place."

Josh's expression turned serious, as he glanced at his friend. "Aran, it's not real," he pointed out. "It's just a character in a story. Don't take it so seriously. If it's bothering you that much, I'll ask if I can take over, but I really think you should finish. Have you talked to Carina about this?"

"No, I don't want her to worry," the half-elf replied, frowning further.

"Maybe you should. I think maybe you're overthinking this. You're not Neville Craven. You're Arandir pretending to be Neville Craven. That's all."

"I know. I understand that. It's just ..." Aran said, trailing off, at a loss for words again. There were times he wished he could explain himself better, but some things just couldn't be explained in words.

"It's a challenge," Josh said, filling in the blank, and smiling in understanding before he explained further. "The best roles - the ones that make us grow the most as artists - are the ones that are the most challenging. Your job is to make the audience not only despise Neville, but sympathize with him, too. He's as much a victim of fate as everyone else in the play. The only difference is that he lets his jealousy and his grief corrupt him to a point where he's no longer redeemable. Think of it as a lesson to others of how not to live their lives. The way I see it the whole play is a lesson. It's a difficult part to play, I admit. The audience is going to cheer for the good guys, but the more you make them believe you are Neville, the more they are going to appreciate your performance. In the end, it's not about who's playing who. It's about the play as a whole. The more convincing you play your part, the easier it is for those around you to accept you in that role and play theirs. Do you understand?"

After a long moment, Aran nodded. "I think so." He still wasn't sure he fit the part of Neville Craven, but if he understood Josh correctly, it wasn't about whether he fit the part or not - it was about creating an illusion and making the audience believe he was Neville Craven, and that was something he understood very well.

"To be honest, playing the villain is a lot more fun than playing the hero, once you wrap your head around it," Josh added with a grin.

"Why?" Aran asked, curiously.

"Because you can do things on stage you'd never dare do in the real world. It's liberating, in a way."

"Well, I would never treat anyone the way Neville does. I would try to help my brother, and welcome Mary, and cure Colin," Aran pointed out.

Josh laughed. "Of course, you would, but that's why they call it acting. If it gets to be too much, I'll talk to Ludo. Promise! But I really think you should finish."

"I'll try," Aran replied. "Thank you for talking with me, Josh. I think I understand now. It's about creating an illusion and teaching a lesson, right?"

Josh chuckled at his friend's innocent misunderstanding. "Partly, but mostly, it's just about having fun and entertaining people. Try not to take it too seriously and just have fun with it, Aran. Trust the director and your fellow actors. You're not alone. You're all in this together. You can do it! I believe in you," he added, giving his friend's shoulder a squeeze.

Aran nodded again, absorbing everything Josh was telling him, and trusting his friend implicitly. It was a lot to ask, but he hoped he could manage it. Everyone else seemed to believe in him; somehow, he just had to figure out how to believe in himself.

Yasmin

Date: 2016-05-31 00:56 EST
Yas had done a brief radio skit on "The Secret Garden" when the Repertory Company did it last year. At the time, she was doing her "Acting Authority" show, were she detailed the various shows of the Shanachie. She called it "a on-the-edge-of-your-seat horror thriller that includes death and disease and murder and torture and everything." She may have accused Mary of killing her parents and using the cholera epidemic as a believable excuse to cover up the murders. She may have charged Archibald with the killing of his wife, Lily, and said that he left the home, not because of grief but, because of guilt. She may have compared the mysterious crying in the house to Lily's ghost crying out from her murder in her very own garden. She also may have suspected that Colin was locked up in the small room which acted like a torture chamber. And she may have heavily implied that Colin was only able to walk after the kids made a deal with the devil in the evil garden of death. She said a lot of things hoping to get a laugh, but playing in it now, she regretted the parody she created.

Playing Lily's ghost, she was able to understand the depth of Archibald's love for her. Eregor made her believe. She didn't know his story, but she knew he put his heart and soul into Archibald's. Even when she was watching Eregor, she would be thinking, "Look at how much he loves his wife." Only when it was her turn to speak, sing, or react, she would remind herself, "Oh, that's right. I am the wife!" and would quickly snap back into her part.

She was very happy that Eregor was able to play another one of his dream roles he mentioned while doing an interview with her. It was secretly why she asked everyone what their dream roles would be. She knew Mataya was listening, in more ways than one.

Although Eregor knocked it out of the park, the others really helped round out the performance. Maggie reprised her role as Mary while Doran got to do a repeat of Dickon. Although Yas knew both youths had gotten this "acting thing" down, it seemed like since both got to reprise previous roles, they were able to grow into the characters even more than before. Yas could definitely tell a difference this time around. Though maybe it was because the shapeshifter was watching from behind the stage this time, as opposed to secretly watching from the audience disguised as an old man. She always made sure to watch at least one performance from each play, and even ballet, thought she'd never let her peers know.

Carina also blossomed in her repeated role as Martha. Though, Yas suspected having Arandir with her on stage this time might have helped. Yas found it mildly amusing that the poor thing was the bad guy again, especially when Arandir was probably "one of the sweetest doggone people in the whole wide Rhydin". Her words. But Dr. Craven was definitely a hard role to play. Playing the "bad guy' was usually the hardest role to play in general. Yas knew that personally. But she hoped the actor wouldn't let the stress of his character weigh him down. At the end of the day, Arandir would get to take off the character's clothes and go home to an equally sweet and loving wife, something Neville never earned.