Hillbarn’s ‘Secret Gardem’ Blooms
By Keith Kreitman, Contributor

‘The Secret Garden” at Foster City’s Hillbarn Theatre is the company’s most impressive production in recent years. It’s also a tribute to the rise in quality of the 64 year old Peninsula institution under the artistic direction of Toni Tomei.

Squeezing a large Broadway musical (book, lyrics and music by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon) into limited space is a challenge, but with stage direction by Karen Byrnes, Hillbarn has pulled it off – visually, dramtically and musically. The quality of the singing touches upon the operatic.

It is difficulty for any non-professional theatre to recruit such a versatile cast but here they are, mounted on a beautifully authentic set designed by R. Dutch Fritz – another of the Peninsula’s best – and clothed in handsome period costumes designed by Mae Heagarty- Matos.

The secret garden is a metaphor for the possibility of regeneration and re-greening of life and hope. The simple story is based on the beloved children’s book by France Hodgson Burnett, also famous for “Little Lord Fauntleroy” and a Little Princess.”

In 1906, a willful 11-year-old English girl named Mary Lennox (double cast with Carly Cozad and Joya Spangler), loses her parents to an epidemic while her colonial army officer father is posted in India. The orphan is shipped off to the estate of her uncle Archibald Craven (Mike R. Padilla) in the brooding moors of Northern England. He is the widowed husband of her mother’s sister, Lily (Lane McKenna)

The death of Lily during the birth of their son Colin (Alex Dreschke or Riley Costello) embitters Archibald and leaves him so bereft that he has trouble relating to his little son. Colin, now 10, has become an invalid, attended by Archibald’s brother, Dr. Neville Craven (Terrence Lewis)

Troubled that Mary looks so much like her Aunt Lily, who still haunts the manor, Archibald escapes abroad, leaving the home and family in the hands of his physician brother.

Neville is cold to her, but Mary is mentored and supported by some of the workers on the estate as she strives to bring her spoiled cousin Colin out of bed and into health.

There is the aging Ben Weatherstaff (Rudolph Vest), protector of Lily’s beloved garden retreat. It’s become a pale secret garden, overgrown with weeds and hidden by ivy; Archibald has locked the gate and thrown away the key.

Another is the friendly young groundskeeper Dickon (Mike A. Motroni).

Mary gets no help from the coldish housekeeper Mrs. Medlock (Donna Cima), but the maid Martha (Jenny Courtney becomes her best friend.

Kay Susanne Arnaudo puts in a funny bit as Mrs. Winthrop, the headmistress of a girl’s achool to which Neville wants to ship Mary in order to get her out of the way in his plans.

The stage is alive with various ghost personalities from Mary’s India past. Her father Captain Albert Lennox (Danny Broome) and mother (Anna Cook) haunt her until she can find a new life.

This old-fashioned tear-jerker is a moving theatrical experience. Bring along the kids.

Movement and dances are gracefully choreographed by Colleen Lorenz; an inventive injection of three garden spirits -- Catherine Keithley, Stacey Kennedy and Katie Rose Sanfilippo – represent the lawn greenery.

Even in this company’s excellent effort, some special mentions must be made.

As Lily, Lane McKenna’s soaring voice has exquisite operatic quality. Bother youngsters are not only good singers and actors, they just know you out with their charm. Motroni, in the smaller role of Dickon, steals every scene he’s in with his agility, strong voice and musical theatre presence.

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