The Secret Garden!
Apr. 22nd, 2009 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newmoonstarThe Broadway Odyssey continues; I've fallen in love with The Secret Garden in a big way. A gorgeous score, rich and atmospheric, a wonderful cast, a magical story, the whole nine yards. I hadn't actually read the novel before, so I rushed out and got it after I listened to the show, and I really love it. The show does diverge from the book in a lot of ways; even before I read the book I thought the numbers with the adults going on about their past and how they all loved Lily were unnecessary and dull, and distracted too much from the main story, and after reading the novel, and finding out that there was nothing of the sort in the source material, I think so even more. Also reading the musical's libretto and finding they wasted a whole book scene on an invented sub-plot about sending Mary to a boarding school, is a bit distracting as well. But I can put up with all that, because of all the good stuff that's there. The music really captured the feeling of magic the novel has. And the cast was wonderful; usually child stage actors are way too hammy, but Daisy Eagan was very natural as Mary; John Cameron Mitchell was great as Dickon, despite the fact that they made the character older, he still had the right sort of elfin charm to make it work; even Mandy Patinkin, (who is the last person who could ever believably play an Englishman) played the role much more low-key than I've ever seen him in anything, thankfully! In fact the whole cast found just the right tone for it, and the ones who had to have Yorkshire accents accomplished them splendidly. The whole thing was a great treat, well-done from start to finish.
I wish I could say the same for the cast recording of the 2001 London revival, though! I was intrigued by the fact that it was supposed to be a 'steamlined' version, but instead of cutting just the extraneous material, they cut some of the best songs too! The did cut the "Quartet" for the adult characters, which was the weakest number, but they also cut "Show Me The Key", which was one of the best! It was also a very important plot point, when the robin shows Mary the key to the secret garden, and it was the most ingeniously integrated piece of musical adaptation in the whole show. But in a way I'm almost glad they did, because the London cast was terrible. Mary and Dickon were the best in the Broadway cast, but the worst in London. Their Mary was one of those stagey hammy children you always find, and their Dickon was... I don't know what that was! He was very strange and even a little bit creepy, because he's really crazily excited about whatever he's singing about, and it was just strange. They really ruined "Wick", and I fear what they would have done to "Show Me the Key". And his accent was terrible! It was something akin to Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, I kid you not. You would think an English actor (I assume he's English, anyhow) could do Yorkshire at least as well as an American, but no. Happily, they did cut most of the ghosts and their rather repetitive commentary (Yes, people, it's a concept musical! There are singing ghosts!) but they added a whole chorus of singing, dancing servants and gardeners! WTF??? How can it be a Secret Garden if there are twenty servants regularly invading it to sing and dance?? At least the 7 or 8 ghosts aren't actually 'there'. And Colin's mother being there as a ghost makes sense, because it was her garden. But dancing servants! Oy. And the guy who played Ben Weatherstaff was a comic or something, I think, and screwed up "It's a Maze" by trying to make it a more comedic number. The one thing I liked in the show was how they extended "Come Spirit, Come Charm" to include more of the Hindustani chant and swirling Indian music, but that's literally the only good thing in it that they didn't screw up. That was the big problem here, the tone was all wrong. They tried to make it cute or silly or jolly, when it's supposed to be beautiful and solemn and joyous. I suppose that's a weird combination that's hard to get right. But the Broadway production did it. I think I'll have to make some room for it on my list of favorite musicals. In the top 5 even. It's that good!
I wish I could say the same for the cast recording of the 2001 London revival, though! I was intrigued by the fact that it was supposed to be a 'steamlined' version, but instead of cutting just the extraneous material, they cut some of the best songs too! The did cut the "Quartet" for the adult characters, which was the weakest number, but they also cut "Show Me The Key", which was one of the best! It was also a very important plot point, when the robin shows Mary the key to the secret garden, and it was the most ingeniously integrated piece of musical adaptation in the whole show. But in a way I'm almost glad they did, because the London cast was terrible. Mary and Dickon were the best in the Broadway cast, but the worst in London. Their Mary was one of those stagey hammy children you always find, and their Dickon was... I don't know what that was! He was very strange and even a little bit creepy, because he's really crazily excited about whatever he's singing about, and it was just strange. They really ruined "Wick", and I fear what they would have done to "Show Me the Key". And his accent was terrible! It was something akin to Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, I kid you not. You would think an English actor (I assume he's English, anyhow) could do Yorkshire at least as well as an American, but no. Happily, they did cut most of the ghosts and their rather repetitive commentary (Yes, people, it's a concept musical! There are singing ghosts!) but they added a whole chorus of singing, dancing servants and gardeners! WTF??? How can it be a Secret Garden if there are twenty servants regularly invading it to sing and dance?? At least the 7 or 8 ghosts aren't actually 'there'. And Colin's mother being there as a ghost makes sense, because it was her garden. But dancing servants! Oy. And the guy who played Ben Weatherstaff was a comic or something, I think, and screwed up "It's a Maze" by trying to make it a more comedic number. The one thing I liked in the show was how they extended "Come Spirit, Come Charm" to include more of the Hindustani chant and swirling Indian music, but that's literally the only good thing in it that they didn't screw up. That was the big problem here, the tone was all wrong. They tried to make it cute or silly or jolly, when it's supposed to be beautiful and solemn and joyous. I suppose that's a weird combination that's hard to get right. But the Broadway production did it. I think I'll have to make some room for it on my list of favorite musicals. In the top 5 even. It's that good!
