The Young REP's Jekyll and Hyde, Birmingham REP - review
When Mary Wollstonecraft launched her Frankenstein novel in the early 1800s it was an immediate success. The advance of science and a prurient interest in the activities of grave diggers like Burke and Hare attracted a wide following.
In 1884 up-and-coming author Robert Louis Stevenson needed a quick fix for his considerable financial problems, while his publisher need a sure fire hit to show-case his edition of Christmas stories.
Eventually he paid around £500 000 in today’s money to publish Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which also became a solid favourite with readers. The theme of dual personality and with its Gothic overtones mixed with Darwinian theory quickly caught the public’s attention and more than 40 000 copies were sold within the first six months.
The novella has been much copied and revamped in its 150 year existence and what is being displayed on-stage at the REP may bear very little relationship to what the author's fans may be expecting.
The plot mainly is about Lady Jekyll's fight to continue his research into dual personality after his death and the problems put up by his academic council.
This follows an opening interlude where a trio of two-person puppet tigers introduce some interesting ideas, but they don’t seem to add much to the story.
Following this comes a scene in a Victorian pub, part of a speech at a Suffragette election rally and a demonstration set sometime in the 1970s about world peace. If there is a message it is that women’s lives today can only be changed for the better if they attack the patriarchal power which underwrites it.
The performances generally speaking are confidently delivered. However, there are some performers whose tone is a little dead-pan and some who have to battle against the REP's unhelpful acoustic.
Evan Placey’s script has wanders through time, and even has someone working on a tablet arrested by Victorian police.
I was not particularly impressed with the movement or choreography, where the ensemble suddenly started to produce leaping moments as though they were undergoing ECT treatment, but bearing little relationship to what was actually happening on stage.
While the whole process may reflect some of this country’s curiosity about mind control and the paranormal I wasn’t totally convinced that it showed us anything much about Victorian science and society the we didn’t already know about.
Jekyll and Hyde runs until April 27.
