‘Garden’ Secrets Reaped : Theater: Joe Lauderdale, who directs a youth troupe in the musical in Laguna, sees lessons of growth in the story of renewal.

LAGUNA BEACH — Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre director Joe Lauderdale admits he was spurred to action recently after reading Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “The Secret Garden.”

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“I started doing a little gardening myself,” he said. “You realize that a plant is not just a plant. It is a living thing. I looked at all the wilting plants and started pulling away the dead parts and turning the soil, as it’s indicated in the book. And it does work. Those things just bloomed.”

Lauderdale was preparing to stage the musical based on Burnett’s classic book, which opens Thursday at the Moulton Theatre, and had never read the original 1911 story before.

What Lauderdale discovered through his own gardening is part of the magic of the story, and what he refers to as the basic metaphors in the tale of Mary, the young British orphan who has been raised in India and is sent to live with her Uncle Archibald in England.

She finds her life, along with those of her bitter uncle and his invalid son, Colin, changed by the discovery of a forgotten garden that has been locked for the 10 years since Archibald’s wife died while giving birth to Colin.

Lauderdale feels that in the book, as in the 1991 musical version, Mary, Archibald and Colin have come together in order to heal--Mary from her parents’ death, Archibald from his beloved wife’s, and Colin from the lonely childhood forced upon him. “I don’t want to get metaphysical about it,” Lauderdale said, “but Burnett was very much ahead of her time in 1911, about the power of the human spirit and the power of the mind. And how what you think can directly affect how you feel. It’s very true.”

The musical’s authors, Lauderdale explained, took material from the book’s final chapter, which discusses Archibald’s obsessive memory of his wife, and the reasons for his worldly wanderings, and dramatized them, along with Mary’s memories of her parents.

“The authors of the musical,” Lauderdale said, “have taken those ghosts and put them on the stage to help the characters eventually release them by the end of the show. That’s one of the reasons I like this version. What Archibald is going through very much parallels what Mary is going through and what Colin is going through. All three of them bloom just like the garden does at the end. It has to do with coming to life.”

A pivotal character in the story is young Dickon, the gardener’s helper who shows Mary the forgotten garden and helps her revive it. He is instrumental in bringing young Colin out of his dark room into the sunshine. And he has a particular knack for bringing smiles to the characters’ faces.

“Dickon talks about how there’s a secret streak of green inside the garden,” Lauderdale said. “He’s referring to plants that look dead. There’s always a streak of green inside that will make it bloom. And that’s what happens to the characters during the story.” Burnett’s gift to her readers was the idea that such a streak of green exists inside each person.

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In Burnett’s day, young people’s literature often gave its readers more to chew on than it does today. Mature themes and ideas were presented honestly in children’s novels, and that has been part of Lauderdale’s philosophy as director of Laguna Playhouse’s Youth Theater.

“One of the things I have always tried to do here at the playhouse,” he said, “especially in my focus of working with young people, is to give them a lot of variety, things that are not just sugar-coated, or just cute for cute’s sake, things they would not get on television or in film.

“The creativity is being lost. And the magic,” he said. “All of that is disappearing. Kids need to have all levels of ideas presented to them. If they don’t understand, the parents can explain it, and that gives great quality time for parents and children.”

* A preview performance of the Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre’s production of “The Secret Garden” is being given tonight at the Moulton Theatre, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. 8 p.m. $10 and $16. The regular run starts Thursday. Performances Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Ends Oct. 22. $16 to $30. (714) 494-8021.