August 1-3, 7-10
Open Air Theater
Washington Crossing
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About the Show
Jekyll and Hyde,
with music by Frank Wildhorn (The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Civil War)
and a book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse (Stop the World—I Want to Get
Off, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), opened on Broadway in
1997, where it subsequently ran for more than three years. The original
production starred Robert Cucciolli and Linda Eder in the pivotal roles;
actors associated with the production during its development and later
life include Colm Wilkinson, Chuck Wagner, Terrence Mann, Carolee Carmello,
Christiane Noll, John Raitt, and countless others. Songs from the production
have become international standards, with “This is the Moment,” “Someone
Like You,” and “Once Upon a Dream” recorded by well-known performers such
as Sammy Davis, Jr, Liza Minelli, and Eder. Recordings of Jekyll and
Hyde at various stages in its incarnation have sold over 250,000 copies
worldwide.
Prehistory
The musical is based upon
the novella, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” published by
Treasure
Island author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886. As the story goes, when
Stevenson showed the initial draft of the novella to his wife, she was
so horrified by its implications that she burned it in the fireplace. Stevenson
rewrote the story in three days, and submitted it to his publisher. The
rest, as they say, is history.
Stevenson’s original work was very brief, and contained only a few characters. In 60 pages or so, the author capably combined horror story, literary fiction, dark comedy, murder mystery, and morality play, set in the moody streets of England in the late 1800s. The tale was not one of gory slaughter or risen ghosts. Instead, Stevenson wrote about a milieu he knew well: the lives of powerful men, who hid hedonistic impulses beneath moralistic facades. Stevenson’s questions were powerful, especially to his Victorian readers: What do we want? What can we have? What will we do when we can’t have what we want?
The Musical
More than a century, and
countless film, television, and stage adaptations later, Wildhorn and Bricusse
premiered their musical. Where Stevenson’s story was, to use the words
of modern author Stephen King, “a cautionary tale as brief as the stab
of an icepick,” this incarnation was bloody and lavish, with a host of
new characters and a more developed storyline.
When the play begins, Dr.
Henry Jekyll is a talented but frustrated scientist, certain he
has found a way to separate “good” from “evil” in mankind but balked by
the prejudices of his colleagues and unable to secure research subjects.
When the Board of Governors of St. Jude’s Hospital rejects his request
for a single human test subject, Jekyll resolves to test his newly developed
formula on himself.
When he does, he finds himself transformed into the feral Edward Hyde, a man freed of stricture. Conscience does not bind him; he has no conscience. Society’s rules hold no fear for him, for he can disappear back into Jekyll at a moment’s notice and escape blame. He is able at last to do anything he wants. What does he want? Love, of course, after a fashion. A good time on the streets of London. And revenge.
Of course, Hyde’s actions impact on Jekyll’s life, and on the lives of those around him. Two women who love him—Jekyll’s fiancée Emma Carew, and the naïve prostitute Lucy Harris—are both placed into potentially mortal danger when they stand in the way of Hyde’s desires.
Wildhorn and Bricusse’s adaptation has changed the story of Stevenson’s novella a great deal, but the heart of the story remains unaltered. Superficially about the struggle between good and evil, Jekyll and Hyde is really a study of what another author called the “Heart of Darkness:” the conflict between dark desires and the compulsion to be “good.” The scariest thing about the story is not that Jekyll is transformed into a monster when he drinks his smoking potion; it’s that he was really a monster all along. What do we want? What can we have? What will we do when we can’t have what we want?
Anything at all.