DreamCast: The Secret Garden

My Thoughts

This is an amazing & underappreciated musical that should be reproduced in tours/regional/community theatres much more frequently. I think the reason why it is a back-burner musical is due to the fact that it seems misleadingly like children’s theatre. I’m sure it is difficult to sell tickets to a children’s book turned musical that is actually so poignantly & applicable to the adult mind. Like Oliver! and Carousel, these musicals read as overly-sentimentalized if poorly directed or thematically misdirected.

The musical opens with the death of Mary's parents, which displaces her from India to the English Moors. Here she meets her Uncle Archibald, who is lost in grief over his dead wife Lily. Mary’s reminiscence of Lily compounded with Archibald’s grief drives him to eventually to run away to Paris. There is a thread of this story that acknowledges the physical displacement occurring in the face of grief. Whether it a choice or a forced relocation, the physical journey in the face of grief is a direct symbolic reflection of the journey that overcoming grief demands. Mary’s active pursuit of life despite grief pulls Archie back to allow him to “walk through the walls he’s hidden behind for years.”

To me, The Secret Garden is thematically a musical study & poetic homage to the reality of adjusting to a grief-stricken life. It accurately addresses the dismantling effect of an acute loss to the living victims. In this musical, the dead are not memories but present characters. This allows the audience to picture their presence, grieve their absence, and empathize with the characters.

Most stories build up to a climax. In The Secret Garden, we are seeing what happens in the aftermath of the climactic moment. The drama has already happened. Lily died, Mary’s parents died. The Secret Garden is almost like Seinfeld in that it is about nothing. But this nothing is a reflection of the absence of something: namely, the person whose death still haunts the one(s) left behind. The moral of this story is that grief is rightfully debilitating, but can somehow be overcome with time from the most unexpected string of catalysts.

The Players

Ralph Fiennes as Archibald Craven

In Wuthering Heights, he was a perfect brooding Heathcliffe.
In The English Patient, he showed that he can conquer
difficult physicalities in characters &
use them to project his performance.

Joseph Fiennes as Dr. Neville

In Shakespeare in Love, swooned silently & sacrificially,

and swallowed feelings of inappropriately directed love.

Those are the feelings that also drive Neville's quiet actions.

I would love to see actual brothers sing this song.

Natascha McElhone as Lily

I LOVE her on Californication.

She is entrancing English rose with a fittingly steel backbone.
And has the hauntingly beautiful thing down.

Suri Cruise as Mary Lennox

She is finally old enough to star in something besides tabloids.

Mary is a girl who is thrust into the world of the English moors
after an isolated life in the foreign, unrelatable India.
I think Suri could channel that feeling.

Chris Colfer as Colin Craven

I don't watch Glee, but a little bird suggested this casting.

I like it because his face has a sweetness to it. Colin is usually cast so frail,
but that physicality should be a result of circumstance. He could first appear sick,
but then go through a physical transformation to appear
alive & fresh in the finale.

Michael Cera as Dickon

He has a positive approachable energy that he brings to every part.

Dickon's first role is to provide companionship for Mary.
Michael Cera is always cast as
a guy who seems fun to hang out with.

He seems to play characters
(Juno, Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist,
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Arrested Development)
that find tiny details of life & make them interesting.

Which is exactly what transcribes between Mary & Dickon:
he introduces her to the unnoticed life around her &
awakens her senses & sense of self.

Ginnifer Goodwin as Martha

I've always had a soft spot for this girl.

She really does exemplify that girl-next-door thing
without being annoying or idealized.

I have liked her in a lot of performances,
Big Love & He's Just Not That Into You (no judgement),
but I have never seen her dominate.

Martha would be a great part to demonstrate her strengths.

Maulik Pancholy as Fakir

His role on 30 Rock proved his skill at
making small characters memorable.
Plus, he graduated from Northwestern's Theatre program, so props for being local.

Rose Byrne as Rose Lennox

I like that she looks like she could
be the sister Natascha McElhone,
as well as the mother of Suri Cruise.

She has a serious & earnest quality
that Rose requires as the concerned sister.

Sam Anderson as Ben Weatherstaff

My primary reasoning for this casting was Lost alumni loyalty.

As Bernard, he was hard-working, honest, & slightly dopey.
And those are the traits of a great gardener.

Kelly Bishop as Mrs. Medlock

She is a great actress & a most important Broadway alum
(1976 Tony for Best Supporting Actress in A Chorus Line)

Not to mention she is also a Gilmore Girls alum.
She is a strong, subtle actress who can play the icy matriarch
without being cold & bland.
Plus, she's so pretty.