“Jekyll and Hyde”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - July 2011

“What [the Jekyll and Hyde story] is telling us…is that to seek to attain perfection is to try to be more than a man; not perfection but wholeness should be our aim. Be angel, be God if you will, but never forget that you are a man, or you will have an ugly encounter with your devil.”

– Robertson Davies

“Why is it so much fun to play the bad guy?” asks James Benjamin Rodgers in his program bio. Rodgers is playing both of the title characters in the Mac-Haydn’s marvelously spooky production of Jekyll and Hyde and from viewing the show, the answer is obvious to me.

The “bad guy,” Mister Edward Hyde, gets to murder all the stuffy old Victorian pah-foots who were so snide and condescending to that nice Dr. Henry Jekyll earlier in the show, and he gets to romp lustily with a saucy prostitute named Lucy (Carman Napier), who has it all over Jeckyll’s wimpy good girl fiancée, Emma Carew (Alison Drew), who wears her nightie buttoned up to her earlobes.

Being nice is, well, nice, but being really, really awfully evil is glorious! And that is exactly what the potion Dr. Jekyll has concocted – in the admirable hope of finding a cure for mental illness – permits him to become.

Jekyll and Hyde is not the greatest musical ever written – Frank Wildhorn’s score is rather repetitively ballad-y – but director John Saunders has taken this lightweight piece and turned it into a wonderfully thrilling and cathartic experience with more spine-tingling surprises than an amusement park house of horrors. Watch the evil Bishop burn! See the uppity lady get her comeuppance when she’s strangled with her own pearl choker! Marvel as Jekyll and Hyde sing a duet (yes, they, er, he really does!) during an epic struggle of good against evil!

(Oh, come on, stop simpering in the corner and confess that at some dark moment in your life you haven’t contemplated with glee the prospect of the death, or at least extreme discomfort, of someone who has done you wrong! It’s a great fantasy and very therapeutic.)

I see that in my review of the 2007 production of this show at the Cohoes Music Hall I gave a very thorough plot summary and exegesis of the differences between Robert Louis Stevenson’s (1850-1894) The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1886) and our current idea of this story, so if that is what you are seeking, please click through.

I do not write enough good things about lighting designer Andrew Gmoser, who is not only responsible for this and most other shows at the Mac-Haydn but illuminates many other regional stages as well. Let me make amends.

The Mac-Haydn stage is a more or less round elevated handkerchief of space surrounded by audience. There is no proscenium arch to “frame” the stage pictures, so it is the lighting performs that function. This means that it is possible to do almost cinematic things – like close-ups – only everything is live and in 3-D, with no silly glasses required. As one Mac-Haydn press release so aptly put it, “It’s up close and in your face here.” For this show Gmoser and Saunders have collaborated to use light to tightly focus and control the audience’s attention in ways that heighten the elements of fear and surprise. Sound designer Luke Krauss and the Mac-Haydn pit band, headed by Kevin Francis Finn, do much to aid and abet the excitement – what fun!

They are aided by a very talented cast, and I mean every single person on the stage. In between endless ballads and unimportant romances (there are virtually no women in Stevenson’s novella), the whole populace of Victorian London seethes on stage to give the leads a chance to grab a glass of water and change costume, and they are very entertaining to watch. Saunders and Karla Shook, who gets credit for choreographing two big ensemble numbers Bring on the Men and the Engagement Party Waltz, keep them constantly on the move. I quickly caught on that as soon as someone was murdered and the “corpse” dragged off stage then that performer changed clothes and almost immediately reappeared as a one of the unwashed masses, undetected in the swirl of motion. This year’s Mac-Haydn company are all powerful singers, and the ensemble numbers really rock. I can’t wait to see them show off their dancing skills in Swing!

When I first saw this show at Cohoes I saw the very talented Rob Richardson in the title roles, and he was superb. Rodgers is a gifted classically trained singer with several operatic roles to his credit, but he is young and not yet a well-rounded actor. However this is a demanding role vocally and Rodgers is more than up to that challenge. He is obviously trying hard and really giving this part his all. He also cuts quite the dashing figure as the gentlemanly Jekyll and I am sure I was not alone among the ladies who found in him a fine matinee idol.

The women have really nothing to do but sing about how much they love Henry Jekyll, but the do it nicely. Much more in the way of dancing is required of Napier, who sashays about sassily in her Victorian undies. Dale DiBernardo’s costumes are all fine, except for Napier’s bustier, which divided her attractive poitrine into a peculiar double set. Most unflattering, and if it made me uncomfortable to look at it I can only imagine how uncomfortable it was to wear and sing lustily in. I am sure that somewhere in their vast costume storeroom the Mac has another, better fitting white bustier. If not, perhaps a trip to Victoria’s Secret is in order?

I hope I get to see Alison Drew play a role with some gumption before the summer is over. She seems a pretty girl and a talented singer, but she is stuck playing these women who live only for and through their men. At least DiBernardo has designed a parade of pretty frocks for her here.

Kevin Kelly is back for a second season and was frankly a revelation as Jekyll’s lawyer, John Utterson. Last season Kelly was used only for comic relief, so it was a delight to see him here playing a serious role and displaying some more than legit pipes. I hope this bodes well for the rest of the season for him.

Now, let me just have a word with the wig stylist, Kyle Skillen. It was perfectly apparent to me, from the time the first corpse appeared on the stage, that the cause of death was a bad wig. And sure enough, every subsequent victim of Edward Hyde’s wrath were also wearing bad wigs. It was a positive epidemic! One was so bad that it departed the body before the soul did. A stronger adhesive would solve that one issue, but I think a good funeral pyre is the only final cure.

I am actually not a big fan of the horror genre, but I had a whale of time at this show. So if you are a fan of a good scare you will just love this one, although I would keep timid youngsters at home because. Saunders has kept the stage blood to a minimum, but, as I mentioned the element of surprise is very much in play, and that can be scarier to little ones than the most graphic violence. Actually, the part of the show that had me squirming in my seat were the scenes where Jekyll injected, rather than ingested, the potion. I just can’t stand hypodermic needles! I know there wasn’t one on the stage, but I still had to close my eyes every time he whipped out that syringe. (Shudder!)

Jekyll & Hyde runs July 7-17 at the fully air-conditioned Mac-Haydn Theatre, 1925 NY Rt. 203 in Chatham, NY. The show runs two and a half hours and is recommended for adults and older children. Matinee and evening performances, times and ticket prices vary: visit www.machaydntheatre.org or call 518-392-9292 for more information.

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