Garden Secret Review – mental change starts in the mind | Child actors

THe Egg theater celebrates 20 years with a fitting but fitting adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Tom Wentworth. favorite book. As Mary and her friends cultivate their secret garden, animal puppets play among the people and flowers appear in the yard washed with greenery. It’s all very cute – especially when the cute Cat Rock dolls jump, fly and run around the playground. There’s plucky plucky, a giant owl and a ridiculously cute lamb. All dolls are frayed around the edges with the original transparent fabric; a celebration of art and nature as much as the beauty of nature.

The dolls are accompanied by a stunning design from Kat Heath and a catchy soundtrack by singer Ben Osborn. The Yorkshire moors surrounding Misselthwaite Manor, where Mary is sent as a widow, are brought to life through the use of curtains and large gloves with long curved fingers, worn by the actors and fluttering in the wind. It’s an unusual work, which sometimes makes the young audience laugh but slowly gets the idea.

Where the show fails is in the story, which doesn’t set a natural tone or focus. Wentworth is well written for TV and his appearance is short and boring. Director Stephanie Kempson has chosen to show a constant change of scene, with the actors chatting as they move. This only makes things more disjointed and the important tone of the story of young Mary, and her cousin Colin, is lost in the noise.

Bilqees Khalid is a bright and charismatic Mary but the script has softened her character around the edges. Jack Hunter’s cousin Colin is innocent but he also lacks the dark side – all that anger and dangerous menace – that makes him so memorable in Hodgson Burnett’s book. The little characters are the most interesting. Daneka Etchells’ Martha is kind but unhinged and Martin Bonger’s characters have bite and depth. His doctor is arrogant and cruel; his uncle lost and broke his heart; His cruel but kind Ben Weatherstaff. It’s through Bonger’s visuals – especially the encounters between the Doctor and the sick Colin – that this production is elevated from a colorful spectacle to a boldly compelling story.