Inspired direction, stunning performances, a striking production design, and sumptuous orchestrations add up to something Los Angeles musical theater lovers have been waiting decades to experience, a Broadway-caliber revival of the Tony-winning The Secret Garden.

Not that community, school, and 99-seat theaters haven’t entertained and moved audiences over the past thirty years with their own scaled-down interpretations of the 1991 musical adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic.

The melodies that Lucy Simon wrote are too beautiful not to soar even with nothing more than solo-piano accompaniment, and Marsha Norman’s book and lyrics are too powerful not to move, even with non-professional casts.

Imagine then how much more impactful The Secret Garden can be with Tony-winner Warren Carlyle directing and choreographing, Broadway luminaires like Sierra Boggess, Aaron Lazar, and Into The Woods breakout star Julia Lester in leading roles, Tony-winning production designers giving the show a brand-new look, and a full orchestra setting all this to music.

That’s what audiences are gifted with at the Ahmanson.

Readers and filmgoers will surely recall how Mary Lennox (Emily Jewel Hoder), born and raised in the British Indian Empire, is orphaned at eleven when an outbreak of cholera kills everyone around her, everyone that is except poor, parentless Mary.

Sent back to England to reside with her mother’s widowed brother-in-law Archibald Craven (Derrick Davis), Mary finds herself stuck in the gloomy Yorkshire moorlands, not particularly welcome in her new abode, either by unsmiling housekeeper Mrs. Medlock (Susan Denaker) or grouchy groundskeeper Ben Weatherstaff (Mark Capri), and surrounded by the ghosts of those cholera victims and the late lamented Lily Craven (Boggess) herself.

On the plus side, Mary does make friends with spirited young chambermaid Martha (Julia Lester) and her spunky nature-loving brother Dickon (John-Michael Lyles), who introduces Mary to the titular garden, locked since Lily’s death.

Later, our plucky heroine makes the acquaintance of her supposedly sickly young cousin Colin (Reese Levine), confined to his bed since birth and cared for by his physician uncle Neville (Aaron Lazar), still suffering from unrequited love for Lily.

Not about to give up on her highly dysfunctional family, Mary determines to return The Secret Garden to life, nurse Colin back to health, and bring about a reconciliation between her young cousin and the father whom the boy mistakenly believes has never once paid his sickbed a visit.

It’s a story that has kept young readers spellbound for over a hundred years, and young movie watchers enraptured since the first of its four big-screen adaptations in 1919, but it’s also one that has rarely gotten its big-stage, big-budget due since its Broadway debut, that is until today.

Given that the Carlyle-Boggess collaboration has been in the works since plans for a 2018 Broadway revival were first announced, then abandoned, it should hardly come as a surprise that Carlyle’s direction is nothing short of brilliant.

Working in tandem with scenic designer Jason Sherwood and lighting designers Ken Billington and Brian Monahan (who eschew the realism of the show’s original Broadway designs for a considerably more dreamlike look), Carlyle isn’t afraid to embrace the darkness of Burnett’s classic tale of the wuthering Yorkshire moors, and never before have the sprits of the departed been so ever-present. (There’s a moment in the second act involving them and Colin that is a bona fide stunner.)

A couple more Carlyle inspirations stand out. In the first, Cholera (personified by L.A. favorite Kelley Dorney in seductive dance mode) claims her victims one by one by one, leaving only Mary behind. The second has Lily and Mary speaking in unison at a pivotal moment I’ll leave it to you to discover.

 Hoder transitions pitch-perfectly from sulky, bratty orphan to sunny, beneficent charmer, and though Boggess isn’t given a word of dialog in Norman’s script, her luminous presence and glorious soprano will take your breath away.

 Davis and Lazar do deeply moving work as lifelong rivals equally devastated by Lily’s loss, and when they duet “Lily’s Eyes,” expect tears and chills in equal measure.

Lester steals every scene she’s in as the zesty Martha, her “Hold On” earning the evening’s loudest cheers, while Lyles gives the irrepressible Dickon a love for life, terrific pipes, and gardening-hewn musculature that makes his performance (and “Wick”) simply irresistible.

Levine wins hearts as angry-turned-adorable Colin, longtime L.A. favorites Capri and Denaker do topnotch work as adversaries who can’t help turning into allies, and Dorney returns to delightful effect in Act Two as a steely headmistress who’s no match for Mary.

Last but not least, multitaskers Terron Brooks, Peyton Crim, Ali Ewoldt, John Krause, Yamuna Meleth, Cassandra Marie Murphy, dance captain Ariel Neydavoud, James Olivas, Kyla Jordan Stone, and Vishal Vaidya scarcely leave the stage in roles that have them harmonizing, ballroom dancing, and in every way proving invaluable in bringing Carlyle’s vision to life.

Add to all of the above Ann Hould-Ward’s costumes, Dan Moses Schreier’s sound design, Victoria Tinsman’s wig and makeup design, not to mention conductor Dan Redfield in the orchestra pit and you have a production that surpasses every single Secret Garden I’ve seen since its First National Tour played the Shubert in 1992.

Last but not least, thanks to casting directors Michael Donovan, CSA, and Richie Ferris, CSA, a greater number than usual of L.A.-based talents are featured on the Ahmanson stage.

Randi De Marco and Sam Linkowski are swings. Appearing at certain performances either Ava Madison Gray or Sadie Brickman Reynolds as Mary and William Foon as Colin.

Orchestrations are by Danny Troob, and music supervision and additional arrangements are by Rob Berman. Joel Goldes is dialect coach. Sara Edwards and Sasha Koziak are associate directors. David S. Franklin is production stage manager and Michelle Blair and Miriam Mendoza are stage managers.

I could go on even more about how magnificently Warren Carlyle’s vision for The Secret Garden has come to life on the Ahmanson stage. I’ll leave it to you to discover the rest.

Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles.
www.CenterTheatreGroup.org

–Steven Stanley
February 26, 2023
Photos: Matthew Murphy of MurphyMade

Los Angeles Theatre Week is coming March 13 to 26.  Read about it at:
https://www.theatreweek.com/los-angeles/

Tags: Ahmanson Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Theater Review, Lucy Simon, Marsha Norman