Tag Archives: Robert Louis Stevenson

Jekyll & Hyde – 4 Stars

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Hyde

Jekyll & Hyde

Chickenshed Theatre

Reviewed – 27th September 2018

★★★★

“a clever interpretation of a classic story with some impressive performances from a talented diverse cast.”

 

The Robert Louis Stevenson story of the nature of humanity and potential for us all to choose to do both good and evil is vividly explored in a new musical opera version of “Jekyll and Hyde” by a dynamic young cast in the Studio performance space at Chickenshed Theatre. The audience enter the Studio along a Victorian street and sit on four banks of rather uncomfortable bench seats facing each other across the cobbles. Flickering street lamps and Victorian smog set the scene. A bridge and sewer below face down to Jekyll’s house and the evocative set designed by Constance Villemot is well used throughout.

The writing team (music by Dave Carey and Hannah Bohlin with lyrics by Paul Morrall) chose to use modern music and words to update the story for today. With director Jonny Morton, they also made the decision to reorder and perform the story chronologically to make it more accessible to a modern audience.

The opera requires careful concentration as it moves quickly through events with two halves of around thirty five minutes each. The music has been prerecorded but all the singing is live. There are twenty-one songs in a variety of styles and enough repetition to make the audience feel familiar with the music during the show.

Chickenshed has an inclusive ethos and the cast reflected this. The dual role of Jekyll/Hyde was performed by Nathaniel Leigertwood. He contrasted the two roles most effectively and the physicality of his transformations and violence as Hyde clearly scared two audience members opposite me. Nathaniel has long dark curly hair which he released from a ponytail as Hyde and used to disguise his face most successfully. His friend and lawyer Utterson was played by Demar Lambert and Dr Lanyon was sung confidently by Finn Kebbe. Sir Danvers Carew was performed by Ecevit Kulucan and Poole by Will Laurence. Vocal performances were generally strong although there were moments when the score was too demanding for individuals.

The chorus were both dancers and singers and their performance was pivotal to the success of the production, with dynamic choreography by Michael Bossisse. The lighting by Andrew Caddies really enhanced the opera throughout. There is a clever piece of stagecraft at the end of the opera which surprises the audience and allows them further insight into the dilemma that Jekyll has faced, forming a neat conclusion to the opera. This is a clever interpretation of a classic story with some impressive performances from a talented diverse cast.

 

Reviewed by Max Bender

Photography by Natalie Greco

 


Jekyll & Hyde

Chickenshed Theatre until 20th October

 

Previously reviewed at Chickenshed:
Monolog | ★★★ | February 2018
Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow | ★★★★ | March 2018
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest | ★★★ | April 2018
Mr Stink | ★★★★★ | July 2018

 

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Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde – 2 Stars

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Hyde

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Rose Theatre Kingston

Reviewed – 14th February 2018

★★

“The one moment of true violence on stage was badly managed, and failed to convince”

 

Robert Louis Stevenson’s late 19th century novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde revisits the same themes as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written 70 years earlier. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, its narrative of the duality of human nature and the merits (or otherwise) of scientific investigation, still have the power to fascinate. What a shame then, that this production remains in the dated and formulaic tradition of Victorian drawing room drama.

David Edgar’s script introduces three female characters to the original, but, despite some excellent work from both Polly Frame as Dr. Jekyll’s forward-looking sister Katherine, and Grace Hogg-Robinson as her plucky maid Annie, their inclusion seemed superfluous, and served only to detract from the pared-down tension of Stevenson’s tale. Indeed, the production as a whole was baggy, and lacked both pace and narrative drive. The inclusion of two sub-plots – Annie’s flight and subsequent appointment in Dr. Jekyll’s house, and Lanyon’s actions as a result of the exposure of his past – together with the final reveal of a formative incident in Dr. Jekyll’s childhood, crowded out the power of Dr. Jekyll’s terrifying experiment entirely.

The production failed to provide any moments of genuine fear, and Phil Daniels’ central performance often teetered on the edge of vaudeville, leaving the audience unsure of what was expected from them. Some able, but strangely-placed, pieces of theatrical business from Sam Cox, as Jekyll’s butler Poole, gave us the reason we needed to laugh, but this reviewer was not the only one to feel the comedy inherent in Daniels’ broad Glaswegian, drunken Hyde. The one moment of true violence on stage was badly managed, and failed to convince, and the decision to delay the conclusion, and thus dilute the impact, of Hyde’s original transgression, as witnessed by Utterson, seemed yet another way to diminish Hyde’s monstrous power.

The production design only served to underline the Fairground House of Horrors feel of the piece, with hackneyed visual and sonic tropes throughout. Rosie Abraham’s haunting voice was beautiful, but overused, and the glowing laboratory door and equipment seemed faintly comedic. As did the continual opening and closing of all three on-stage doors, which bordered on the farcical.

Ultimately, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde did not seize the imagination. It is a tale that still has the capacity to bite, but, unfortunately, this production rendered it toothless.

 

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Mark Douet

 


Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Rose Theatre Kingston until 17th February then continues on tour

 

 

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