NY Review: 'The Secret Garden'

With "The Secret Garden," the Astoria Performing Arts Center once again proves that those involved have the thrift and ingenuity to put on first-rate productions. And once again the company's choice in material is brought into question. Last year's revival of "The Human Comedy" was notable mostly for the cast's voices and the muscular, flexible staging. This year's musical revival boasts the same assets and the same flaws.

Under the direction of artistic director Tom Wojtunik, "The Secret Garden" moves fleetly through Frances Hodgson Burnett's famous story: Orphaned Mary Lennox travels from India to Yorkshire, where she encounters hunchbacks, scheming doctors, demanding invalid children, and possibly a ghost or two before her kindness and determination melt away all the problems facing her new family. But even as Wojtunik's staging and Michael P. Kramer's deceptively simple set impress, the book and score (Marsha Norman wrote the book and lyrics; Lucy Simon contributed the music) drag. Depicting the effects of grief in musical form is tricky (even trickier when the musical revolves around a 10-year-old), and Norman didn't quite overcome the limitations of the themes.

The work's flatness, however, is only apparent in flashes thanks to Wojtunik's inventive work. He and his cast create a sense of genuine creepiness as little Mary wanders among the ghosts of Misselthwaite Manor, and the ending is restrained enough in its sentimentality to be genuinely moving. If child actor Hannah Lewis is more affectless than necessary as Mary, she is charming nonetheless, as are Jaimie Kelton's kindly chambermaid Martha and Michael Jennings Mahoney's Dickon, Martha's brother. As Mary's uncle and his brother, Patrick Porter and Benjamin J. McHugh both find the heartbreak beneath the characters' rigid exteriors, and Sam Poon is appropriately imperious as the bed-ridden Colin. The rest of the large ensemble all boast powerhouse voices (particularly Jennifer Evans as the ghostly Lily) and execute Wojtunik's fine-tuned blocking with military precision.

After a Broadway season of overblown, mindless musicals that place more emphasis on volume and special effects than story, consider APAC's "The Secret Garden" an elegant palate cleanser, a reminder of how potent passionate theater can be, even without all the expensive flash.

Presented by and at Astoria Performing Arts Center, Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, 30-44 Crescent St., Queens. May 5–19. Thu. and Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m. (212) 352-3101, (866) 811-4111, or www.apacny.org. Casting by wojcik|seay casting.