Secret Garden director pays tribute to McPherson
ON STAGE
What: The Secret Garden Where: McPherson Playhouse When: Nov. 4 and 5, 2 p.m. Tickets: 250-386-6121 When Roderick Glanville arrived at McPherson Playhouse this week to begin technical rehearsals for The Secret Garden, he was overcome by a combination of déjà vu and exhilaration.
“It’s so exciting when you come to the Mac. You get that rush and the feeling that this is actually real,” said Glanville, who was on familiar territory in more ways than one.
While the theatre was home to past shows such as Little Shop of Horrors and James and the Giant Peach, Glanville, artistic director of the Kaleidoscope Theatre for Young People, was back for the revival of a show he first staged three years ago at a very different venue.
The writer-director’s adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic 1911 children’s book premièred in 2014 at a pop-up theatre at Uptown Shopping Centre, drawing capacity crowds during its short run.
Most of the original cast has reunited for its two-performance revival — a “fully realized production” that Glanville says is a theatrical testament to the healing power of love. The theatre has an intimate feel that’s fitting for the show, he said.
“What I keep forgetting about is how intimate the Mac is for the work we as Kaleidoscope present to our youth,” he said. “We’re often the gateway to live theatre for young audiences, and what a place to experience that.”
Set in an old manor home in England at the start of the 20th century, the children’s literature classic chronicles the experiences of Mary Lennox, a sickly 10-yearold girl whose wealthy British parents and servants were killed during a cholera epidemic in India, where she was born.
After she is sent to live with Archibald Craven, a reclusive uncle, and his invalid son, Colin, her life is magically transformed when she finds a key to her uncle’s locked, overgrown secret garden of the title.
As the angry and hurt girl brings the garden back to life, she rejuvenates the lives of her uncle, his son and the manor’s staff, as well as her own.
“The garden, with its healing properties, helps reveal the secrets that have haunted the innocence of [Mary’s and Colin’s] youth,” Glanville said.
“From these seeds of hope and truth, a renewed action propels us all into the power of love and new beginnings.”
Glanville said he fell in love with Burnett’s story when he was a youngster, and became a huge fan of the musical version starring one of his favourite actors, Mandy Patinkin. Describing it as “a feel-good story trapped in some darkness,” he said that, given Kaleidoscope’s young target audience, he made a point of balancing that darkness with levity.
He chose not to use a “big-box” set, opting for a “less is more” approach by emphasizing the text and setting the action against abstract projections by local artist Danny Everett Stewart.
“It’s very spare,” he said. “I feel the geography requires an empty space that reflects the emotional void of the characters, particularly Archibald.”
There is modern staging despite its period setting, but no technology.
“People don’t phone each other, they don’t text anybody, and they have to move around in this space to communicate. They find their communication in nature.”
Glanville said he felt strongly that it would be better for theatregoers to imagine what a particular room looks like.
“I don’t need to paint it for them. They can go to the movies for that,” he said.