THEATER REVIEW : Strong Acting Keeps ‘Secret Garden’ Abloom : Sweetening the tone of this classic tale proves a plus for Santa Barbara City College production.

It’s summertime, and productions of “The Secret Garden” are sprouting like crabgrass up and down the coast.

The latest offshoot is at Santa Barbara City College’s Garvin Theatre, offering up a lavish, eye-catching bouquet, in keeping with the intent of the show’s creators.

Yet for all its decorative appeal, this 1991 musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s perennial children’s favorite remains a problematic stage transplant. Marsha Norman’s facile book and lyrics prune much of the novel’s psychological complexity, and Lucy Simon’s flowery score is only occasionally striking.

It’s a great credit to director Rick Mokler’s staging that these limitations rarely hedge our enjoyment once we’re comfortable with the central vision of a softer, gentler “Secret Garden,” very different in tone from the darker PCPA Theaterfest production running concurrently in nearby Solvang.

The city college’s Theatre Group version clips more of the thorns. Its heroine, Mary Lennox (10-year-old Heather Ramsay), a recently orphan exiled to her uncle’s brooding, solitary estate, was originally conceived as a downright disagreeable bad seed whose attitude slowly becomes more wholesome and loving.

From the outset, however, Heather presents a thoroughly charming and adorable Mary; even her most self-centered outbursts have more a scent of typical childish petulance than unpleasantness at the core.

It’s not a bad casting ploy. Heather plants an immediate sympathy for the little girl that sustains interest even when the plot bogs down in obscurity (anyone unfamiliar with Burnett’s book will find this adaptation’s bewildering crossovers between past and present tough going).

Mary’s brooding hunchbacked uncle, Archibald Craven (Larry Cross), has also been spruced up a bit: Rather than a forbidding, obsessive figure, he’s a tenderhearted guardian, despite his tortured remorse for the untimely death of his wife, Lily.

Who can blame him? In her spectral visitations, Tina Lacommare Rance as Lily’s ghost is blessed with an exquisite singing voice that could easily coax foliage from barren soil. Her benevolent influence bears fruit in the restored health of her and Archibald’s invalid son (Adam Whiteley, who nails the character with insight and skill well beyond his 11 years).

Other fine performances that keep the stage abloom include Even Caston as the tree-hugging Dickon and Julie Keatinge as the kindly maid who first befriends Mary.

Also noteworthy is the live musical orchestration led by David Potter, who brings color and vitality to even the sappiest numbers. As theater, though, this one’s more of a horticultural implant than a cultural stimulant.

Details

* WHAT: “The Secret Garden.”

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through July 29.

* WHERE: Garvin Theatre, 800 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara.

* HOW MUCH: $13-$15.

* CALL: 965-5935.