On being lost

Our play, The Secret Garden, opens tonight. We had an open dress rehearsal last night, with a fairly good-sized audience, and they gave us a standing ovation at the end of the performance, so we have all breathed a collective sigh of relief: it's a very complicated production, and we are delighted to hear that it actually works.

Which at some level is amazing. Because there were so many last minute scenes to work before last night's production, we had no time to warm up together before rehearsal, and so the opening scenes were a bit tentative, and unexpected problems kept cropping up. It is, however, a very seasoned and competent cast, so no one said anything negative about how things were going and we just kept plowing through.

But there is one moment in the first act that might have been a turning point. Little Mary Lennox is awakened in the night by the sound of someone crying (it is Colin, afraid in his room, because a storm is brewing) and she begins to prowl the halls of the mansion in search of the sound. At the same time her Uncle Archie has awakened, hearing the wailing of his deceased wife, Lily.

So Colin is crying in his bed offstage while Lily, Archie and Mary are wandering the halls, all crying out, all frightened and alone, and parts of the scenery are weaving in and out across the stage. It's very like those really horrible transition times in life, when everything in life is in flux, all the familiar landmarks are gone or have shifted, and we feel so terrifyingly alone.

The confusion and fear are echoed in the cast -- the music is complex, the set changes are complicated, the lighting keeps changing, and everyone must walk their own path and somehow know that it will all come together at the end of the scene.

But our director, Teresa Thuman, is amazing, and it DOES come together. And at the climactic moment the entire cast is on stage (though some of us are hiding behind the curtains) singing the last three and highest and loudest notes of the song: "I AM LOST!"

We, you and I, whether spectators or participants in the play, know that somehow that which is lost will be found, and the garden that lives within our hearts will be revealed. But there are those scary moments when it looks pretty hopeless -- a bit like this forest picture. You know there is light, somewhere; you know there is hope. But there are times when all you can see are the trees looming over you. The path is overgrown, you can't seem to find your way out, and there's this paralyzing fear that you may be stuck in this moment, this place, this situation forever.

At such times it becomes an enormous act of faith to step even one foot forward, and I will always be grateful, not just for our director, who could visualize and create a scene that so perfectly mirrors those moments, but for my faith, which has survived and blossomed in those times, and for the friends who continued to beckon me forward when I just wanted to curl up in a ball and wail. Thank you!