Theatre Articles
A Delicious Evening
By John Moore, Jul 30, 2004
"The Secret Garden" is a labor of love for the Evergreen Players, with co-director P.K. Worley its benevolent gardener. The sadness underlying Frances Hodgson Burnett's complex classic is that so many of its characters have been cruelly orphaned from family. The overt joy in witnessing the Evergreen Players' presentation is that it is such a robust family affair.
This is a four-Worley show. The co-director's stellar young granddaughter Jamie Billings handles the lead role of Mary, his wife Donna plays Alice and his daughter Brenda Billings is his stage manager. Perhaps P.K. might have found a spot for grandson Tucker Worley had the lad not just returned from a year in the national touring company of "Oliver."
But the beauty of community theater is that the creative process tends to germinate its own extended families, regardless of genetics. P.K. Worley has assembled a 21-actor tribe that distinguishes itself for having operatic-quality voices. The vocal talent is so well-distributed, it is as if our gardener has plucked a dandelion and with a gentle breath scattered its seedlings to all corners of the stage.
"The Secret Garden" is surprisingly well-executed from its first note. Though after 54 years of performing in a spectacular setting 35 miles west of Denver, maybe it shouldn't be.
Anachronistic as it may sound, community theater is just about the only level where you might see such a fully staged production like this because of the costs a professional company would incur. About the only compromise Worley has to make is the regrettable (though expertly laid) use of pre-recorded tracks. Worley even has a nine-person running crew constantly spinning five set pieces around. This is a crew that could teach any outfit in town the value of an effective set change. They serve a critical role in this swiftly moving saga. Burnett's sad tale opens in North Yorkshire, England, in 1906. Mary Lennox has lost both parents to cholera in India and so she has been shipped off to live with her hunchbacked uncle Archie, who has grieved for a decade over a wife Lily (Mandi McKibbin Ogle) who died delivering sickly Colin (Bobby Conte Thornton).
Mary is befriended by maid Martha (an impeccable Juliana Black) and her young brother Dickon (Matt Gottlieb) -the last role John Cameron Mitchell played on Broadway before creating "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." (That Tony-winning 1991 cast also featured Denver Center favorite Robert Westenberg as nasty Neville.)
The sadness that swirls around Misselthwaite Manor is also what gives "The Secret Garden" its blue beauty. The story is told with Dickensian weight while sung in the complex chamber stylings of "Jekyll and Hyde." Populating the stage are a chorus of ghosts called "dreamers" who serve as narrators. Lightening the mood considerably are a trio of natural teenagers -Billings, Gottlieb and Thornton -who gamely carry their heavy burden.
Helping the kids greatly are Collins and Shane Delavan with the gorgeous duet "In Lily's Eyes" and Black with the evening's musical highlight, "Hold On."
"The Secret Garden" is incorrectly presumed by some to be children's theater because it relies so much on young actors. But it intelligently explores themes of abandonment, loss and the spirit world ("there are only ghosts as long as someone alive is holding on to them") without ever resorting to sentimentality.
It is through the discovery of the abandoned garden that Mary and Archibald discover many things that appear to be dead -as in their own hearts -are merely biding their time.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
*** 1/2 FAMILY MUSICAL|Evergreen Players, 27608 Fireweed Drive|Directed by P.K. Worley and Kathleen Davis; starring Jamie Billings, Tyler Collins, Mandi McKibbin Ogle|2 hours, 25 minutes| THROUGH AUG. 8|7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays|$7-$15|303-674-4934
This article originally appeared in the Denver Post, July 30, 2004. Reproduced with permission.