Wednesday, October 28, 2009
City Theatre's gory 'Jekyll and Hyde' bursts with energy
Post Gazette: "Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher and the City Theatre have rescued melodrama from politics and put it back on the stage where it belongs."
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I had the opportunity to see Jekyll and Hyde this weekend and very much enjoyed it. The use of a small ensemble to play all the key roles (including four separate facets of Hyde's personality split among the four actors who embody him) was a really intriguing way of showing Hyde's inner arguments with Jekyll and with himself, per se. I didn't really see the effectiveness of the Monet backdrop; the artistic director commented that they wanted to have a murky and gray view of London, but to have it broken apart and put back together like a jigsaw puzzle, but to me it looked too artistic and too straightforward to be the chaos that they were looking for. I also had the opportunity to play the Seek Hyde scavenger hunt through the South Side on the trip and it was a very fun experience. The game used clips from the show and associated those clips with various locations around the surrounding area, such that when the characters were discussing the murder of Danvers in the park, I connected it to the park I visited in the game. It changed my view of the show, but perhaps for the better.
First off, I feel like I'm getting redundant because I've commented on almost every Jekyll and Hyde article so far. But also, way to go Susan Tsu! Because the costumes in that picture look gorgeous. And okay, I feel like I really need to say this. This line in the article bothered me a little bit more than anything: the author described the play as "a lightweight parody of good and evil." Although I think that's what they were going for based on all the articles we have read thus far, I'm a little disappointed that someone has yet to bring that raw and dark edge of the book to the stage. The book is, obviously, not a lightweight parody. Although apparently the play is very dark and gory, I feel like the book has so much depth that has never been produced for the stage. Of course that's a much larger task and doesn't necessarily appeal to wider audiences...but yeah...it's just sad and a little disappointing.
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