In this version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s book, the eponymous garden is nowhere to be seen. York Theatre Royal’s revival of the Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon musical opens with the stage shrouded in dust sheets, setting the tone for what’s to follow. This is a gloomy, interior space, filled with ghosts and secrets, into which young newcomer Mary Lennox finally starts to shed some light.
Norman’s adaptation shifts emphasis away from Mary and her young companions and on to the adults in the story: Mary’s tortured uncle and guardian Archibald Craven, his conflicted brother Neville, and the ever-present spirit of his beloved dead wife Lily, whose walled garden Mary discovers and brings back to life. It makes for a darker, more haunting telling of the story, atmospherically accompanied by Catherine Jayes’ orchestrations of Simon’s score. Director John Doyle’s actor-musician production adds to the sense of phantoms watching from the walls of Misselthwaite Manor, with the multitalented players constantly present on the edges of scenes.
