The * ideal * Jekyll & Hyde: A discussion- Page 3

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 10/28/14 at 7:16pm

The short answer: It doesn't, because that element isn't in the book for those versions of the scene. The golden age of Broadway would have called it a "tired businessmen's number." Today, it might be called "tits and ass."

[Elfuhbuh]

Posted: 10/28/14 at 8:29pm

Ah, okay, that makes a little more sense!

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 10/29/14 at 4:50pm

If it helps you to contextualize it in the narrative, however, you could say it plants the seeds for Lucy and Jekyll's mutual attraction.

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 6:52am

I had forgotten that I'd made this thread, but after finding it again, I decided to revive it and update/revise my original ideas on what my "ideal" version of the show would look like.

 

In the time since I created this thread, I have listened to the Resurrection recording, looked at the Playbills for both the 1997 and 2012 Broadway productions of the show, all of which has given me a new perspective on how to make the story work to its fullest potential, incorporating elements of both Broadway versions as well as the Resurrection recording.

 

Here, therefore, is my updated and revised "ideal" version of the J&H score, complete with performer notes:

- Act One -

"Prologue"/"I Need to Know" - John Utterson and Dr. Henry Jekyll

"Facade" - Ensemble

"Lost in the Darkness" - Dr. Henry Jekyll

"Board of Governors (Jekyll's Plea)" - Dr. Henry Jekyll and the Board of Governors

"Pursue the Truth" - Dr. Jekyll and John Utterson

"Facade (Reprise)" - Ensemble

"Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! - Board of Governors and John Utterson

"Emma's Reasons" - Simon Stride and Emma Carew

"I Must Go On"/"Take Me as I Am" - Dr. Henry Jekyll and Emma Carew

"Letting Go" - Sir Danvers Carew and Emma Carew

"Facade (Reprise #2)" - Ensemble

"No One Knows Who I Am" - Lucy Harris

"Good 'N Evil" - Lucy Harris

"Here's to the Night" - Lucy Harris and Dr. Henry Jekyll

"Now There is No Choice"/:This is the Moment"/"First Transformation" - Dr. Henry Jekyll

"Alive" - Edward Hyde

- Act Two -

"His Work and Nothing More" - John Utterson, Emma Carew, Sir Danvers Carew, and Dr. Henry Jekyll

"If You Only Knew" - Emma Carew

"Reflections (Jekyll's Soliloquy)" - Dr. Henry Jekyll

"Sympathy, Tenderness"/"Someone Like You" - Lucy Harris

"Alive (Reprise)" - Edward Hyde

"Murder, Murder" - Ensemble

"Once Upon a Dream" - Emma Carew

"Obsession (Streak of Madness)" - Dr. Henry Jekyll

"In His Eyes" - Emma Carew and Lucy Harris

"Facade (Reprise #3)" - Ensemble

"The Girls of the Night" - Lucy Harris and Nellie 

"Dangerous Game" - Lucy Harris and Edward Hyde

"The Way Back" - Dr. Jekyll and John Utterson

"A New Life" - Lucy Harris

"Sympathy, Tenderness (Reprise)" - Edward Hyde

"The World Has Gone Insane"/"Lost in the Darkness (Reprise)"/"Confrontation" - Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde

"Facade (Reprise #4)" - Ensemble

"Letting Go (Reprise)" - Sir Danvers Carew and Emma Carew

"The Wedding"/"Finale: Once Upon a Dream (Reprise)" - Company

Updated On: 12/21/15 at 06:52 AM

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 8:53am

My quibbles are as follows:

 

* Too long by far. And no, banding them together with "/" doesn't disguise the fact that there are far too many numbers in this version of the show.

* No "Bring On The Men"? Seriously? You found time to slot all the other crap back in, but "Bring On The Men" isn't an option? It's one of the few things that most people agree should be there.

* "If You Only Knew" and "His Work And Nothing More" are numbers for the same slot. Directly following one with the other is overkill. (You could say the same about other numbers in the show that are truthfully variations of the same theme or plot function, if you know the history of the material -- "I Need To Know" and "Lost In The Darkness," for example. Separating them by distance doesn't change the fact that they offer two motivations for Jekyll, his quest for knowledge and his fight to save his father, which, while not mutually exclusive, can be conveyed without needing to resort to two whole songs.)

 

In short, I feel like plunking this list down without a little explanation was very bold, but some is called for.

Updated On: 12/21/15 at 08:53 AM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 10:06am

Please,please,please- get rid of Facade.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 10:51am

Facade is one of my favorite numbers in the show, but as I mentioned before, it's always been in the wrong place.  The original pre-Broadway staging of Facade was really effective and the number worked well.  Good 'n' Evil still shouldn't be in the show and it does NOT serve as Jekyll's inspiration.  I saw the show when Bitch Bitch Bitch was still in and though mildly humorous, it added nothing and was rightfully cut.

 

Coincidentally, the girl who originally played the "newsboy" calling out the headlines that opened Murder Murder in Act 2 for the world premiere of J&H is a friend of mine.  

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 12:45pm

Sorry for the lack of explanation as to why I did what I did. It was late (because I couldn't sleep) and I'm dealing with some eye pain that is driving me crazy. I was actually going to include extensive notes, but ended up getting fed up with the pain and felt like I needed to at least try to fall back to sleep in order to get some relief, so I just hurriedly posted the song list.

 

Since people raised some concerns, I'll do my best to address them point by point:

Length: With the way I laid things out, there are 20 songs in Act One and 22 songs in Act Two, which is honestly on par with Les Miserables and Sweeney Todd. I know those are both sung-through musicals, but you could easily take J&H and make it sung-through without losing any of the story, especially with the wealth of material that was written for it.

Bring on the Men: I just don't like that song, and there really wasn't anywhere to put it based on the way I revised and restructured the music, so it went by the wayside in favor of a song that I personally enjoy significantly more in Good 'N Evil.

 

His Work and Nothing More, Emma's Reasons, and Reflections: In looking at the lyrics of His Work and Nothing More and the interpolation of the individual verse parts being sung by Emma and Jekyll in relation to the lyrics of If You Only Knew and Reflections, I noticed an interesting thread start to emerge, which is that If You Only Knew and Reflections, lyrically, could be easily made to serve as a counterpoint to what Emma and Jekyll are saying in HWaNM. IOW, HWaNM contains Emma's rationalizations in front of her father and Jekyll's rationalizations in front of Danvers, John, and Emma, but IYON and Reflections represent the truth that they spent HWaNM denying.

 

I Need to Know and Lost in the Darkness: I already previously covered my rationalizations for including them both in the show, but I actually think those rationalizations work better by moving LitD until after Facade.

 

Facade: Why are people calling for me to get rid of it? I like what it's saying, and it pretty much hammers home the entire point of the show, especially with I Need to Know being the introductory number, since what Facade says goes hand-in-hand with what Jekyll says in INtK.

Updated On: 12/21/15 at 12:45 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 1:09pm

Ok keep it but deep six Murder Murder. By doing what you say Dig, it would be an opera.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 1:26pm

I still say the original Broadway book and score was as good as it gets save for the removal of "Bring on the Men." That was their only mistake. The endless revisions usually just create more problems than they solve.

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 2:30pm

Mr Roxy said: "By doing what you say Dig, it would be an opera."

 

What's wrong with making J&H sung-through, opera-style, in the same vein as Les Mis and Sweeney Todd?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 4:45pm

Nothing at all. If they can make an opera out of The Fly, why not J/H?

[philly03]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 11:11pm

Meh, I'm bored -I'll play. Jekyll is my favorite musical. Here's what I what do:

 

Act 1:
"I Need to Know" - Jekyll
"Board of Governors" - Jekyll/board
"Facade" - Ensemble
"Possessed" - Jekyll, Emma*
Engagement Party
"Take Me As I Am" - Jekyll, Emma
"Letting Go" - Emma, Danvers
"Bring on the Men" - Lucy
"Lucy Meets Jekyll" - Lucy, Jekyll
"No One Knows Who I Am" - Lucy (short)*
"Pursue the Truth" - Jekyll, Utterson
"This is the Moment" - Jekyll
"Alive/Lucy Meets Hyde" - Jekyll
"Once Upon a Dream" - Emma
"Reflections" - Jekyll**
"Sympathy, Tenderness" - Lucy
"Someone Like You" - Lucy
"Alive Reprise" - Hyde

 

Act 2:
"Murder, Murder" - Ensemble**
"Girls of the Night" - Lucy, Nellie/etc*
"Obsession" (or "Reflections" - Jekyll
"In His Eyes" - Lucy, Emma
"Dangerous Game" - Lucy, Hyde
"If You Only Knew" - Emma
"The Way Back" - Jekyll
"A New Life" - Lucy
"Sympathy, Tenderness Reprise" - Hyde
"Facade Reprise" - ensemble
"Confrontation" - Jekyll/Hyde
"Once Upon a Dream Reprise" - Emma, Jekyll

 

A few notes:

-The ending for me has always been cringeworthy - the whole wedding scene. Cut it, and have Jekyll die in his lab.

-A new song should replace "Murder, Murder." I've got some ideas for one.

-Any song with a * means you could cut it. I love "Girls of the Night" and a shorter version of "No One Knows Who I Am" (I actually love the version Deborah Cox recorded on that last album), but I'm not sure both is needed. I like the idea of giving Lucy more back story, and would be open to Lucy seeing Nellie's death or something to spook her to get away from Hyde and go towards "a new life." Maybe that could open Act 2 and have "Murder" be the first death of Act II.

-Emma needs something to do in Act 1, but I just can't wrap my head around why she'd sing "If You Only Knew" so early on; then again "Once Upon a Dream" doesn't make much sense either. 

 

I was pretty disappointed with Jeff Calhoun last time around. All he did was cut the fat despite say he was making big changes (adding "I Need to Know" and "Bring on the Men" which are in nearly every version of the show except Broadway does not mean big changes). The show will always get clobbered by the critics unless they actually try to change something. Obviously you must love ballads for my version...
 

 

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/21/15 at 11:23pm

The confrontation number in this version was laughable.

[philly03]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 1:06am

Dangerous Game was trashy...

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 1:24am

It should be illegal to cut Bring on The Men. It's such a good song! So much better than Good N Evil

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 1:45am

The lyrical message of Bring on the Men runs completely contrary to Lucy's character for me. That's why I don't like the song.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 2:48am

But the song isn't about her character. She is performing a cabaret type song in a nightclub in an effort to attract a group of men. The lyrics of a song such as that do not need to reveal anything about her character. (It's the rest of the songs that should be doing that.)

Updated On: 12/22/15 at 02:48 AM

[chewy5000]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 7:44am

I wonder what John Doyle would do with a show like this. Of course, if I were he I wouldn't go near the unruly mess.

[philly03]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 10:33am

Lucy's also a prostitute.... Not like she's singing at 54 Below or something. It's a fun campy song.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 11:02am

Let's also note that the only script which establishes Lucy as attempting to do anything substantial to get out of her station in life as an anything-for-a-fiver honey is the Broadway version. Yes, there is a general sense of melancholy and a desire to find something better to do with her life in all versions, but only in the Broadway version is it ever indicated (however briefly) that she's actually attempting to be informed about anything outside the world of the East End, what with going to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park to listen to speeches.

 

(And, speaking only for myself, I don't think that's essential -- you don't have to prove you're "above" your lot in life to want to get out of it. Who gives a rat's ass what speeches she's been hearing? And if you must strive to be above your station, then show it in more than a throwaway line. You wanna show me she's learned something from all that, show me Lucy trying to debate one of these topics the orators talk about with a brain-dead coworker and getting nowhere. Show me Lucy reading something and trying to understand the ideas, but comically missing the point; it allows us an easy laugh, but also to see that she is trying. Give me something that's not heavy-handed and telling instead of showing. It's drive-by exposition like that in the Broadway script that makes me wonder how the hell it was ever Tony-nominated.)

 

And this is leaving aside the fact that, as CATSNYrevival put it, this is not a song about her character. It's a number that she performs in a club. Look at the example of Cabaret: "Don't Tell Mama" [or for that matter, "Mein Herr"] doesn't tell us anything about Sally Bowles -- the scenes that follow do. These are just cabaret numbers which, while they may comment on the action depending on the version of the script being used, have nothing whatever to do with establishing character. They're just numbers. At most, in either show, you could say they establish that this person is being put out there doing second-rate "sexy" spots at a dingy dive for an appreciative audience, and in order for the protagonist to be introduced to them. That's it. No heavy lifting necessary.

Updated On: 12/22/15 at 11:02 AM

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 12:19pm

I just realized that I don't have the same objections to The Girls of the Night that I do to Bring on the Men even though I ought to since both songs create a contradiction in Lucy's character vis a vis the rest of her songs, especially Dangerous Game.

 

BotM and TGotN paint a picture of Lucy as a whore, which just doesn't jive with the reluctance she shows in Dangerous Game when she and Hyde get intimate,  which means that if I'm going to be absolutely true to my principles, I really shouldn't use either song.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 12:21pm

In concert, Eder has said BOTM should not have been removed. She let it be known she prefers it to Good.

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 12:45pm

Mr Roxy said: "In concert, Eder has said BOTM should not have been removed. She let it be known she prefers it to Good.

 

"

Hmm. Her opinion carries a lot of weight with me since she's my favorite Lucy.

 

I wonder if GNE would work in Act Two as a lead-in to Dangerous Game.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 12/22/15 at 12:56pm

It would be completely unnecessary to have two songs at the pub. Although, there is an early Broadway draft that has Lucy singing another song called "Anything is Possible Tonight" and is immediately followed by one of the other girls, Aggie, singing a second song, described as a Victorian music hall number, which she sings under the dialogue that follows between Jekyll and Lucy.