“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
“an outside eye could have helped transform this production into something truly extraordinary”
This retelling of the Medea story, set in the 1980s is a production by Pecho Mama , a company formed in 2016 with the aim of creating work that tramples the boundaries between music and live theatre. If that is taken as the goal of this production, then they have succeeded, however there are two fundamental flaws in the storytelling that cause the experience to be ultimately unconvincing.
According to the publicity, the story of Medea is played out “amid the brilliant chaos of a live gig.” Sam Cox and Alex Stanford, the two musicians onstage, are an integral part of the production, and the music and songs are convincingly 80s. I didn’t experience any wild chaos though. It’s more like an 80s electro-synth pop duo, with some rather good psychedelia as the story progresses. Both men are accomplished and experienced. The music was good, as was the soundscape, designed by Simon Booth.
Mella Faye and Jack Weir’s set and lighting design are excellent and evocative. The stage where the gig is taking place has some iconic 80s items suspended overhead, a tape recorder, a Fisher Price record player, a phone and a TV. There are lightbulbs dangling and an extraordinarily effective use of smoke and lighting at the climax of the show. Faye also wrote the script and plays Medea.
Medea is the only character we see. Other people are heard, not seen. This is an effective strategy, exposing Medea’s isolation, and Faye is utterly convincing as she communicates with the voices of her children and her loathsome husband. So what’s the problem with the show? Well, Faye’s Medea is a wonderfully loving mother, a woman isolated in a new home and abandoned by her husband, trying to keep everything going as she finds out what her husband Jason has been planning. We see her begin to fall apart as she discovers the extent of Jason’s betrayal. But I was not convinced. There is no way that Faye’s Medea would kill the two boys she loves so much. I just didn’t buy it. Her descent into calculating murderous fury was too controlled, her love for her sons too evident. The drama of the music and lighting at the end, and Faye’s driving performance of the final scene needed to be earned. They were not.
The second problem with the story is that Jason has left her for a gay man. He is going for sole custody of the children. Surely, in the atmosphere of the 1980s with the AIDS panic and associated societal difficulties faced by gay men, Medea would have nothing to fear from a custody battle, no matter how hard Jason tried to portray her as a depressive and a poor mother. Making Jason gay is an interesting idea, but one that was not fully thought through.
There is no director listed in the credits, and I wonder if that is part of the problem. It feels as though an outside eye could have helped transform this production into something truly extraordinary. So many of the elements of a really great show are present. It’s a pity it didn’t quite live up to expectations.
