‘The Secret Garden’ – a magic drama that appeals to all ages

Date Published: {J}

The Secret Garden from Galway’s Moonfish Company is proving to be among the most popular offerings at this year’s Baboró Arts Festival for Children if advance bookings are any indication. With over a week to go before the festival opens, an extra show has been added to cope with demand.

The Secret Garden is based on the classic children’s book by Frances Hodgson Burnett and it tells the story of Mary Lennox who is sent to live with a reclusive uncle in England after her parents die in India. Lonely and withdrawn in this great, empty mansion on the Moors, Mary finds solace in the strange tales told by the locals, of a Secret Garden that was locked away ten years ago and left to run wild.

Then one day, she finds a key buried deep in the earth – a key that will change her and her uncle’s life forever.

“Even though it’s regarded as a children’s book, adults get so much out of it,” explains Máiréad Ní Chróinín who, with her sister, Ionia is the co-director of Moonfish. Although it’s ostensibly the story of what happens when Mary discovers this secret garden, it’s also about getting into a depression and being unable to lift yourself out of it, she adds.

“And it’s also about the restorative power of nature and friendship, so both children and adults get it at different levels,” continues Máiréad, who observes that many adults have fond memories of the book from childhood.

Moonfish premiered The Secret Garden during Galway Theatre Festival last October when it was presented for just one show. Since then it has been reworked and toured around the country. As part of that reworking, the company members took part in several shadow-puppet workshops.

“We use shadow puppets in the show as a narrative technique because there is a story within a story, involving the adults,” explains Máiréad. “The puppets allow us to tell that, and it takes on the effect of a fairy story in Mary’s mind.”

The puppets are also visually striking because of the use of shadow and light, in their portrayal, something Moonfish really developed in the workshops.

As a theatre company, Moonfish have developed slowly but steadily since the group first came on the local scene four years ago, when they staged Bonny and Read during Project 06. That play mixed drama, music and song to chart the wild lives of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, two real-life female pirates that sailed the Caribbean Seas in the 1700s.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.