There is an old toast told at funerals in Wales that pays homage to both sides of a death.

"The loss, aye the loss. Turn around, ye be found."

Loss and the painful path to fill the empty spaces left behind are at the heart of a lovely and  warm-hearted production of "The Secret Garden" being staged at Soulstice Theatre under the direction of Artistic Director Jillian Smith.

The 25-year-old musical is often played just as the story of Mary Lennox, orphaned by a cholera plague that ravages India, where she lived with her parents. But Smith has structured this production into a universal tale of loss so many of us have in our lives and how that loss can lead us to something like resurrection.

Mary, played with tenderness and childish guile by Claire Zempel, is sent to a colorless estate in Yorkshire to live with her uncle Archibald (Stephen Pfisterer) who is in full mourn for his dead wife Lily (Ruth Engel Brown) and his ill son Colin (Seth Hoffman).

The household is a collection of lost souls, joined by Archibald’s physician brother (Joe Riggenbach) and situated on the edge of a garden, tended to by Lily during her life but gone to dry after her death.

It is this secret garden that holds the key to restoration of those without hope or happiness. Inside this garden, there is a magic that can heal.

This play is about the struggle to find happiness in a world that is too often filled with the decay that marks Lily’s garden. Everyone has their own demons running through their lives keeping them from finding their individual path to the blooms that are missing.  

This production is a powerhouse once things get rolling.

It has a huge cast – 20 in the tiny confines of the theater – and in the beginning, it seems to be more than a bit much. The storyline can be difficult to grasp early on, and while the script calls for all these extras, Smith might have been better served to use a scalpel to refine the telling of this tale. All these people running around singing seemed counterproductive.

But after intermission, the story rolls into the clouds, prepared to wring tears from every member of the audience.

Zempel is a graduate of the First Stage production line of wonderful young actors, and she sets a high bar for the adults around her in this show. She has the kind of discipline and emotion rare in someone so young. But she commands a stage and has the kind of presence that demands attention.

Pfisterer was a wonderful surprise as the deeply troubled uncle and father. He has a face that fills with emotion and draws you in with his power and pain. He has plenty of emotional moments, but I truly began to get the chills when he sat by the bed of his little boy and sang of his love for his son as he said goodbye while the child sleeps.

Race you to the top of the morning!
Come, sit on my shoulders and ride!
Run and hide, I'll come and find you,
Climb hills to remind you,
I love you, my boy at my side!

Pfisterer and Brown share a moment at the end – he alive, she an apparition – as they touch their souls that had been so long separated by loss. "How Could I Ever Know" was the kind of duet that makes musical theater the profound art form that it is.

As summer has finally arrived in Milwaukee, it’s joyful to see the bloom of flowers and the sweet smell of all that is green. It is the perfect time to see "The Secret Garden" and remind ourselves that with every loss there seems to come a thing to be found.

"The Secret Garden" runs through June 25 and information on tickets and showtimes is available here.