| Department
of Theatre and Dance and the Kirkland Fine Arts Center in cooperation with the Symphony Orchestra Guild of Decatur and the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra |
|
|
xxx
| Synopsis |
|
||||
xxx |
||||
|
| |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This classic story has enchanted children since ints publication in 1911. Orphaned in India by cholera, an 11 year old girl is sent to live in Yorkshire, England with her only living relatives--an embittered, reclusive hunchback and his invalid son. The uncle's estate includes a magical locked garden. Flashbacks, dream sequences, a strolling chorus of ghosts and beautiful music dramatize the play's tale of regeneration. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| xxx | |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What’s
challenging about producing this classic on the stage is that there are
so many beautiful and breathtaking films in our collective consciousness.
Film can capture the gray/brown haze of winter’s death literally
growing as spring brings back new life. It’s nature’s magic.
In designing the set, Charles and I wanted to avoid the plastic foliage
garden, which fondly became known as: Hobby Lobby ‘throwing up’
onstage, and find a theatrical solution unique to the magic of the theatre.
So you won’t see a “garden” per se, you’ll see
our theatrical impression of the change from winter to spring, lost to
found, death to new life. Regarding
the journeys of myth and fairy tale, Joseph Campbell says: |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The
transitional period between turn of the century Victorian and Edwardian
Britain has been characterized as tumultuous, to say the very least. With
the Boer Wars and colonization of the British Empire, the death of Queen
Victoria in 1901, and a growing division between poverty and wealth, the
whole of Britain was changing. Ever-present was the looming threat of
disease brought on by the over-crowded, teeming cities of the most expansive
empire in the world which encompassed colonies from London to Bombay.
While these cities held necessary and tempting jobs, they also threatened
typhus, cholera, and tuberculosis outbreaks. As hopeful immigrants and
families flocked to urban areas like London, others preferred to remain
on the outskirts of the hubbub, where the air was still fresh, agriculture
governed daily life, and where the rolling moor beckoned with its ocean
of heather. Mary Lennox experiences this drastic environmental and psychological change when she is transplanted from her youth in the stifling, oppressive heat of India, to her first signs of adolescence in the rich, fertile gardens of Yorkshire. With her, Mary brings the seeds of change, affecting even the most stubborn and resistant residents with her exotic spells and willful determination. Children of rural Britain slowly evolved from the well-mannered, innocent, and industrious beings of Victorian England into ones that were more inclined to use their imagination, find trouble, and define themselves individually. The revolutionary Edwardian, Mary Lennox, arrives in the North Country of Britain, finding herself among well-behaved, kind and generous children like Martha and Dickon, who thrive on nature, earthy goodness, and who know their spot in the scheme of society. As we follow Mary’s journey, we are witnesses to her ongoing struggle to define who she is, and the path that leads her to the door of Misselthwaite Manor. Secret Garden reminds us that the healing power of redemption is innate in everyone; only sometimes it lies beneath the surface begging to be awakened. Foster, Shirley and Judy Simons. “Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Secret Garden.” What Katy Read: Feminist Re-Readings of ‘Classic’ Stories for Girls. Iowa City: U of Iowa Press, 1995. 171-190. Thacker, Deborah Cogan and Jean Webb. “Romanticism vs. Empire in The Secret Garden.” Introducing Children’s Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 2002. 91-7. ---. “Testing Boundaries.” Introducing Children’s Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 2002. 73-84. Thompson, Paul. The Edwardians: The Remaking of British Society. Chicago: Academy Chicago Pub., 1985. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||