Document text
By Vickie Aldous Mail Tribune November 05. 2014 11:58AM The power of human spirit Fans of "The Secret Garden" will find a faithful adaptation of the children's book when Randall Theatre brings the literary classic to life on stage. Fans of "The Secret Garden" will find a faithful adaptation of the children's book when Randall Theatre brings the literary classic to life on stage. "I don't like it when I read a book and see the movie, and it's completely different. I wanted to stay true to the book," says Grants Pass writer and director Cynthia Hanson-Hewitt, who wrote the stage adaptation for the Medford theater company's production of "The Secret Garden." She went through the book, trimming and condensing scenes to fit the physical and time constraints of theater, but using much of the original dialogue and plot from the beloved book by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The results premiere Friday, Nov. 7, with the Randall Theatre Company's traditional opening night gala. Tickets for opening night cost $20 and include food and drinks beginning at 6:30 p.m., followed by the play at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $15 for subsequent performances at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 13-15, and Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 20-22. Matinees are at 1 p.m. Sundays, Nov. 9, 16 and 23. Tickets can be purchased at www.randalltheatre.com or by calling 541-632-3258. Pay-what-you-want tickets will be available 30 minutes before each show.  While many readers come to love "The Secret Garden" as children, Hanson-Hewitt said she first encountered the book a decade ago when she was looking for a stage project to do with her son, who was a boy at the time. "It's a beautiful story that's been around a long time. I just really think it has a message for people about the power of the human spirit," Hanson-Hewitt says of the book published in the early 1900s. At the start of the book, the main character, Mary, is a spoiled, unloved child raised mainly by servants and ignored by her parents. When they die of cholera, she is sent to live with her morose uncle, Archibald Craven, who is mourning the death of his wife many years ago. He travels the world, unable to forget the past. Mary gradually gets to know the wholesome, positive servants of the new house and begins to venture outside on the English moor. As she gains physical strength, she also begins to change her sour disposition. Mary discovers a secret garden surrounded by a wall and protected by a locked gate. She also hears mysterious sobbing noises coming from within the house. She eventually makes her way into the garden, and also discovers she has a cousin named Colin, a seeming invalid living in constant fear that he is crippled and about to die. Colin begins visiting the garden with Mary, where he works to gain strength and health. Randall Theatre has cast kids to portray the child main characters in the play, rather than trying to stage the children's classic with adults. "It really does call for a young person to play that part," Hanson-Hewitt says of the character Mary, played by 9-year-old Eva Bartlett. Hanson-Hewitt said Bartlett has done amazingly well with the role. "Eva tutors algebra in her spare time. She knew her lines almost immediately," Hanson-Hewitt says. Another girl, Ella Rose Schaefer, is playing the part of Colin. Hanson-Hewitt says Schaefer did the best job reading for the character. "We've worked a lot on how boys move differently. Colin is sickly and in bed most of the time. She's really studied how he moves and how he looks," says Hanson-Hewitt, who has years of experience with children's theater and previously produced stage adaptations of classic fairy tales. Teen actor Matthew Figurate plays Dickon, a Yorkshire lad with a positive attitude and love for nature. Randall Theatre is using light, sounds and music to help audience members feel they are outside in a garden. The garden itself changes as the children clear away weeds and tend the long-neglected plants and trees. "It gets bigger and brighter," Hanson-Hewitt says. "There are more lights and music to show promise and hope and redemption." http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20141105/ENTERTAINMENT/141109863 © 2015 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->