Stage Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Long Beach Playhouse

Have you seen Dr. Jekyll lately? He’s a changed man – one might even say transformed. That nasty business with Mr. Hyde seems too well known to bear repeating, and yet there’s something different now, as if Jekyll’s infamous elixir has been reformulated into something new and rejuvenating.

That’s certainly true of Jeffrey Hatcher’s 2008 adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which reinvents Robert Louise Stevenson’s classic tale, keeping the classic elements intact while adding new ingredients and viewing the concoction through a refractometer that reveals subtleties previous left unseen. Brought to life with engaging performances and brisk, efficient staging, the Long Beach Playhouse production is a complete triumph whose approach mirrors the Jekyll-Hyde duality: it feels like a highbrow exploration of a philosophical concept until it suddenly shifts into sadistic horror with almost cruelly calculated effectiveness.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Long Beach Playhouse: Finding New Life in an Old Story

The challenge of adapting Jekyll and Hyde is that everyone already knows the story, but they story they know is not quite the one that Stevenson wrote. The original tale, titled “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” is a mystery in which Jekyll’s friends worry about his relationship with an unsavory acquaintance, Mr. Hyde. Only in the penultimate chapter do we learn that Jekyll is Hyde. Then the final chapter is a written statement by Jekyll explaining everything that was going on behind the scenes – while leaving most details of Hyde’s predations up to our imagination. Stage and film adaptations typically depict Jekyll’s experiment from the beginning, then invent numerous incidents to show what Hyde gets up to. (This typically takes the form of providing two female love interests: the respectable society girl for Jekyll; the dance hall streetwalker for Hyde.)

Taking a cue from the original, Hatcher’s adaptation starts with Jekyll’s lawyer, Utterson (Carmen Tunis) hearing a friend tell a story in which a letter from the doctor helps get Hyde out of a sticky situation (a crowd of onlookers is demanding recompense for a young girl he trampled over). After that, the plot is revealed from the perspectives of different characters, which the script assembles like fragments of a puzzle. It’s a clever approach that eases us past our expectations and skips over scenes we do not need to see again, keeping us entertained while waiting for Jekyll’s friends to catch up with what we already know.

In this version, Dr. Jekyll (David Vaillancourt) is a respectable middle-aged man, who clashes with his pompous and sexist colleague Sir Danvers Carew (Aaron Izbicki) by day while enjoying himself in the form of Mr. Hyde by night. Hyde’s sexual predilections trend toward torture (including acid), but Jekyll waves away his alter ego’s crimes as long as they don’t reach the level of a capital offense. Their truce (if that is the right word) comes to an end when both personalities develop an interest in Elizabeth Jelkes (Alexandra Young), the older sister of the young girl Hyde trampled. Hyde murders Carew, leaving evidence to implicate Jekyll, but Jekyll cleverly turns the tables, forcing Hyde into “hiding” (so to speak). It’s an intolerable stalemate that cannot last…

Archer’s achievement is blurring the lines between Jekyll and Hyde (something many adaptations attempt but not to this extent). As in the original, Jekyll is not a man hoping to purge himself of evil so that he can achieve moral purity; he wants to have his cake and eat it too, maintaining his respectable position while enjoying the depravities of Hyde. Archer seizes upon this idea and follows its implications, questioning Jekyll’s pretense of moral superiority. Jekyll’s lawyer Utterson notes that she has seen a wide range of people ranging on different arcs of the spectrum, none of them reducible to a one-note description. The implication is that even Hyde may not be the embodiment of pure darkness, just as Jekyll is far from purely good.

Furthermore, by riffing on an idea floated but never developed by Stevenson, the play suggests that Jekyll’s theory about bifurcated personality is too simplistic: humans may have not two diametrically opposed personalities but many overlapping ones. The play underlines that by having Hyde portrayed by the various supporting cast members at various points, suggesting there is a little of Hyde in each of us and a little of each of us in Hyde. Meanwhile, Vaillancourt never steps into the Hyde role, but he does perform one or two actions worthy of Hyde.

It all comes to a head over Elizabeth Jelkes, who was triggered something in both Jekyll and  Hyde. Perhaps it may be a little bit of Jekyll showing through, but Hyde treats her unexpectedly well. Perhaps it maybe bit a little bit of Hyde showing through, but Jekyll fears her knowledge of Hyde may be a threat to him.  The blurry lines lead to a climax bristling with ambiguity as the two personalities war with each other over Elizabeth’s fate, leaving the audience uncertain whom to root for.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Long Beach Playhouse: Staging a Transformation with a Twist

When you think of Jekyll and Hyde, inevitably you think of the transformation from one to the other, which has been achieved on stage and on screen using myriad technical and cinematic effects. That is not what you get here, and it’s emblematic of Long Beach Playhouse’s achievement that what sounds like a disappointment turns out to be completely satisfying, even thrilling.

Since Jekyll and Hyde are played by different actors, there is no makeup or lighting effect changeover. Instead, Davenport’s Jekyll often shares the stage with his alter ego, at times giving a sense of the rival personalities battling inside his head (all the more so when more than one actor is portraying Hyde on stage). This makes the transitions feel seamless and natural. This reaches its fullest effect when Hyde, on the run from the police, has Jekyll’s friend Dr. Lanyon (Terrance Sylvas) procure the chemicals needed to revert to Jekyll. The transformation is a simple handoff, almost like a wrestling partner tagging into a match. It may sound silly, but the smoothness of the changeover is dramatic and evocative – another blurring of the line between Jekyll and Hyde, which perfectly sets up a major, disturbing change to the story that soon follows.

This kind of effective simplicity runs throughout the production, at Long Beach Playhouse, a small theatre holding under two hundred audience members. The single set serves as numerous locations, creating easy transitions in time and setting. The performance floor space extends well past the set, creating a theatre-in-the-round effect that frequently puts the action right in front of you. Enhanced with good costumes, colorful lighting, and eccentric music cues (including two renditions of “People are Strange”), the result exceeds many far more elaborate productions.

Picking out favorites from the cast is a tricky task when everyone is so good, but we’ll mention that Alexandra Young navigates the difficulties of the Elizabeth Jelkes. It’s hard to believe that anyone woman would fall for Hyde unless she was suicidal, but somehow she sells it. We also enjoyed the multiplicity of Hydes, though perhaps Trevor Hart captured the man’s lurking threat better than the others (he felt dangerous even when he wasn’t doing anything).

Ultimately, however, it’s David Vaillancourt’s show as Jekyll. He charts a downward trajectory that has the audience following him all the way even as their attitude toward him changes from approbation to disgust. The character is written to lose our sympathy, but in Vaillancourt’s hands he never loses our understanding.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Long Beach Playhouse: Conclusion

Long story short: This is a great production of a great play. The Jekyll-Hyde story has been told many times on page, stage, and screen, but never has it been told like this, and seldom has it been told quite this well.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Long Beach Playhouse: Photo Gallery