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Based on one of the best-loved and well-read children's books of the century, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, the musical of the same name, was bound to attract interest. Add picture-book sets, engaging characterisations, and award-winning music by Lucy Simon, and it has exceeded the producers' wildest expectations. After a hit season in New York and a sell-out US tour, it opened in Brisbane's Lyric Theatre to good reviews in July. According to producer John Frost, 98 per cent of seats were sold in the Queensland capital.
Next week, The Secret Garden opens at the State Theatre in Sydney. Frost estimates the company needs to make $6 million at the box office in Sydney to break even. By opening night, he says, $3 million worth of tickets will already have been sold: "It is the biggest financial hit my company has ever had," he told the Herald.
The production has a number of drawcards. One is the special place the original book has long had on children's bookshelves. Another is the all-star line-up in the Australian production. Anthony Warlow, Marina Prior and Philip Quast were last seen together on the stage of another blockbuster, Les Misérables. "Les Miz was on a huge scale, all about dying in revolution for a new way of life. This is about everyday small-but-huge issues and the family feeling backstage enhances that," says Prior, who plays Mary Lennox's dead mother, Lily, a character developed for the stage show. "It's almost as if they'd cast a circle of friends. The majority of us are not just colleagues but best friends, too. It's a very supportive atmosphere; everyone wants everyone else to do really well.
"I was a bit surprised that John offered me the role because we'd had a bit of a clash over importations (of overseas actors) a while back, and I thought that was the end of it," Philip Quast says wryly. His career has been extraordinarily varied and includes television (mostly notably a leading role in the ABC'S The Damnation of Harvey McHugh) and theatre (he returned to work in The Secret Garden from a stint in The Christmas Carol and Love's Labours Lost at the Barbican in London with the Royal Shakespeare Company) as well as musicals. The variety, he says, is essential for keeping alive the freshness of theatre.
As well as the chance to play a challenging role which he didn't quite know how to tackle at first, Quast says his fellow cast members were an attraction. "(Anthony and I) hadn't worked together since Les Misérables and we get to sing that great duet - 'Lily's Eyes' - it's like the duet in The Pearlfishers."
In addition to the musical theatre stars, the veteran actor June Salter adds gravitas in the small but anchoring role of the housekeeper Mrs Medlock. Despite the calibre and fame of the adults in the cast, however, it is the children who steal the show. They are another drawcard, albeit by word-of-mouth - all the show's publicity has centred on the bankable stars.
On the night the Herald saw The Secret Garden in Brisbane, 11-year-old Sarah Ogden played Mary. Her stage-presence overwhelmed the stage every moment she was on it; her acting was exuberant and truthful, her singing a delight. "Anthony's, Marina's and my names are up there, but that's the surprise of the night," says Philip Quast. "Mary's role is the trump card of the night."
There are six children in the show - two Marys and two Colins, who work on alternate nights - and two understudies. Two thousand children from around the country were auditioned for the roles and the children chosen will travel to Sydney and on to Melbourne. "We have to tour nannies, tutors, the whole thing," says Frost.
Ten semi-trailers full of scenery and costumes will roll south over the Queensland border in the next few days. The scenery has been brought from America holus-bolus. Some of the original costumes were also used, though new clothes were also made to fit the Australian cast. In Sydney, the State Theatre's angled stage will require some tinkering with the sets but, Frost says, no-one will be able to tell the difference from front-of-house. Despite the challenges it poses, the theatre has its attractions: "I chose (it) because of its capacity and atmosphere, and the fact that the public loves it," he says.
The only significant change in the Australian production is the lighting - reworked by Australian lighting designer Rory Dempster. "It's more dramatic lighting and highlights things in certain scenes you couldn't see at all before," says Frost.
Frost says he first saw The Secret Garden in Vancouver, at the end of its American tour. "I had a gut feeling about it," he says. "By interval, I thought I just have to have this show." While he was watching it a second time, he formulated a wish-list of performers in his mind. Extensive market research, apparently, confirmed his instincts - about the show itself and the performers.
The American director, Susan Shulman, went to see Philip Quast in London and fired his enthusiasm for the show. "We had coffee and walked down Shaftesbury Avenue, and we started railing against the world and talking about the things we liked, especially in theatre," Quast says. "I hadn't seen the show; I hadn't even listened to it; I had just read the libretto. And I couldn't make sense of my character - I thought it was underwritten. But she said, 'I think we can work this out'."
Marina Prior was keen for the part from the start. She started rehearsals three scant weeks of holidays after her last show finished. "I had come straight from West Side Story which had passionate Latin rhythms and a lot of balletic Jerome Robbins choreography," she says. "This is the antithesis to that. It is grounded and Anglo-Saxon, and has long ethereal lines."
Frost is a principal of the production company, The Gordon/Frost Organisation, which has toured such shows as South Pacific, Hello Dolly! and The King and I around Australia and is about to take South Pacific to Thailand. He usually mounts shows with partners - the Adelaide Festival in the case of the first three examples mentioned.
His company has gone into The Secret Garden with the Queensland Performing Arts Trust and the Lyric Opera of Queensland, a third each way.
© The Sydney Morning Herald
