THEATER REVIEW : ‘Secret Garden’ Digs Beneath the Surface for Its Message of Healing : The PCPA Theaterfest musical production offers engaging family fare while conveying poignant insights.

Like all enduringly popular children’s tales, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “The Secret Garden” communicates a message about human values in the guise of an entertaining story.

But where so many of the classics set their lessons against a backdrop of adventure and derring-do, Burnett’s 1911 novel deals extensively with loss, wounding and the healing process of the soul.

It’s a profoundly inward-looking work, which presents all manner of difficulties for a dramatic adaptation.

All the more reason to applaud PCPA Theaterfest’s production of the Lucy Simon/Marsha Norman musical version, which manages to convey some--though not all--of Burnett’s remarkable insights even as it delights the eyes and ears.

It also sidesteps some of the problems that plagued this musical in its 1991 Broadway debut--a glitzy, overproduced affair in which lavish staging frequently overwhelmed the delicacy of the characters and themes.

For Theaterfest’s production, directors Jack and Carolyn Shouse have pruned back the technical foliage and found intriguing ways of supplementing the story with movement and choreography that help navigate its sometimes murky terrain.

The opening is a particularly dense jungle as our heroine, 10-year-old Mary Lennox (Alexandra Currie), the daughter of British colonialists in turn-of-the-century India, finds herself orphaned by a cholera outbreak. Returned to England and placed in the custody of her melancholy hunchbacked uncle (Jonathan Gillard Daly), Mary soon discovers that Archibald Craven’s mansion is bursting with ghosts and dark secrets.

Young Currie handles herself with the poise and polish of a seasoned professional, establishing Mary as a disagreeably self-centered and argumentative child who ultimately blossoms into a caring young girl when she encounters Craven’s invalid son (John Brockman).

Shattered by the death of his beloved wife, Daly’s Craven is a brooding tangle, poignantly evoking the consequences of a heart too long isolated from others.

Following Burnett’s central metaphor of a neglected garden restored to full bloom, these three flawed characters find healing and completion through learning to love one another.

Lovely though the story may be, however, it’s unnecessarily hard to follow, particularly for younger viewers unfamiliar with the source material. Burnett’s original reason for Mary’s initially disagreeable nature--utter neglect by her parents--is never explained and in fact contradicted by some of the staging. Playwright Norman’s lyrics aren’t so much songs as meditative prose set to Simon’s haunting music; rarely do they crystallize moments of recognition as they would in the hands of a master librettist.

But for those who’ve already entered “The Secret Garden” by way of literature and can appreciate its nuances, Theaterfest’s colorful, thought-provoking rendition is a welcome addition to the sparse arena of family theatrical events.

Details

* WHAT: “The Secret Garden.”

* WHEN: Through May 7 in Santa Maria; begins June 22 in Solvang.

* HOW MUCH: $12-$18.

* CALL: For reservations or further information, call (800) 549-PCPA.