Just got back from the show. Very interesting evening.
I'll preface by saying that this was the first time in quite a while that I've ever seen Jekyll and Hyde onstage. I saw the Broadway production with Rob Evan several months before it closed, but haven't seen any other regional or community productions of the show. Therefore I can't really comment on the changes to the show as they compared to the licensed version of the show.
This production makes heavy use of projections. The text of all of Jekyll's journal entries is projected as he writes in his journal. Projections are also used to great effect in several scenes, but more on that later. The first thing you see when you walk in is the show curtain, which is blotched by splotches of ink that gradually spread across the curtain. The proscenium is framed by LED panels. The show opens with a thunderclap as the band plays the familiar J&K intro. Jekyll's "In each of us there are two natures..." speech is heard and you also see the text appear on a wall upstage. We then see Jekyll's father strapped to the wall in his laboratory, followed by the scene between Danvers, Utterson, and Jekyll and 'Lost In The Darkness' and 'I Need to Know'. The former prologue in which Utterson and Danvers spoke directly to the audience is gone.
Five panels then fly in and we see the members of the board of governors in their undergarments. During 'Facade' their servants enter and dress the members of the board for their meeting. During the 'board of governors' scene/song, the portraits of the board members were projected onto the panels.
The engagement party scene was significantly shorter than it was on Broadway. The song 'Emma's Reasons' has been cut, and I didn't really miss it since the whole Emma/ Stride thing was never developed properly before.
I liked the way 'Bring On The Men' was staged. Lucy sings the first verse to herself in a very self-reflective, almost mournful manner as she gets dressed in her dressing room. As she transitions to the stage of The Spider's Web (no longer called the Red Rat), the music becomes more upbeat, with the others girls joining in.
The song 'Now There Is No Choice' gone.
I thought the transformation was outstanding. Jekyll's laboratory table is fitted with large test tubes filled with bubbling green liquid. At the bottom of the test tubes are a bunch of cords. He had some sort of mask that was connected to the cords that he strapped on and then you saw that liquid in the tubes change color, so that the effect was the liquid was flowing into him. Framing the lab are several LED panel columns on which bubbling liquid is projected. As the transformation progresses Jekyll's notes are projected on the back wall and the lab table rises into the air, stretching the liquid cords out as Jekyll sits below in a chair. After he transforms into Hyde, he smashes his lab chair.
The intermission curtain shows a giant spotlight, in which the shadow of Hyde passes back and forth, sometimes pausing, as if looking straight at the audience.
"Alive" is longer than it was on Broadway; it's comparable to the version heard on the concept recording. In between the two verses of Alive is a scene in which Hyde meets Lucy and buys her for the night. Those familiar with the 1996 recording will recognize a few lines that Hyde sings from the track 'Lucy meets Hyde'.
'Murder, Murder!' has been almost completely rewritten and is retitled 'Murder'. The infamous line, 'to kill outside St. Paul's requires a lot of balls' is gone, and Wildhorn has rewritten the chorus, so that it bears almost no resemblance to the 'Murder, Murder' melody. The staging was cool: the large panels fly in, and as the board members are killed by Hyde, they're propped up on stretcher-like things and their portraits are projected. Only the pictures of those killed are projected; the remaining panels show flashes of scenery (ie, newspaper headlines), until eventually all the members are displayed. The death of the last governor (i forgot who it was) depicted Hyde throwing the man off a platform at train station and the man being hit by a train.
After 'Murder', the dead board members sing a reprise of 'Facade'. Unlike the other facade reprises in the other version, I thought having the dead governors sing worked very effectively.
The song "Reflections" from the concept recording is inserted right after 'Once Upon A Dream' and it shows Jekyll weighing the possibility of suicide as way to rid himself of Hyde.
'Dangerous Game' is staged in Lucy's dressing room, with Hyde tying her up and alternately beating and caressing her over the course of the song until he finally mounts her at the end.
"The Way Back" is now sung by both Utterson and Jekyll. Utterson sings the first verse to a distraght Jekyll. What I liked was that after the song is over, we clearly see Jekyll transform back into Hyde. "A New Life" is still sung in Lucy's bedroom. After Hyde kills Lucy, he transforms back into Jekyll who is shocked when he sees Lucy lying dead. The reprise of 'Facade' that was in the original broadway production has been cut. The scene transitions from Lucy's room to Jekyll's house.
The brief reprise of "Lost In The Darkness" that was sung at the beginning of the confrontation has been cut. Instead the song begins with the lines "It's over now, I know inside..."
I loved the confrontation!. The set for Jekyll's house is dominated by a giant portrait of Jekyll that's upstage above a fireplace. As Jekyll sings his part at the beginning of the song, the Jekyll portrait is replaced the singing figure of Hyde. As the song goes on, Hyde's face is projected onto all the walls of the set, and his voice grows more warped and menacing. The song culminates in an explosion that occurs when Jekyll drinks the antidote.
The finale is pretty much the same as the broadway version except that Emma and Danvers sing a reprise of "Letting Go" at the top of the scene. Also, after Jekyll stabs himself, he sings a short reprise of "Once Upon A Dream".
I thought that Constantine Maroulis's Jekyll was very charming and endearing. I thought he brought a touch of humor to the role, especially in his Act 1 scenes at the Spider's Web. He was definitely in good voice for the Jekyll numbers , but he really stood out on "This Is The Moment" and "The Way Back". He and Teal Wicks were great during "Take Me As I Am". I thought his Hyde was a lot weaker than his Jekyll. For most of the show there wasn't a really voice change in his Hyde; he sounded exactly the same. The exception was the final wedding scene, where his voice was noticeably lower and rougher. He also did a lot of rock riffing during both Alive and its reprise.
Deborah Cox's Lucy had a 'older' vibe. I thought she mostly played her character as someone who had been around the block many times. There were moments where she really owned up it, like in the first verse of Bring On The Men where she sings "There was a time, I don't know when, I didn't have much time for men". Then there were other times where she seemed to be trying to play the 'young' Lucy. It was inconsistent, as was her accent. Her voice sounded a little light, IMO, almost frail. She sounded good enough, but to me, there wasn't a lot of 'oomph' to her voice or power behind it. But then again, I may just be spoiled from listening to the recording with Linda Eder.
Teal Wicks was amazing. She and Deborah sounded fantastic during "In His Eyes" and "His Work and Nothing More". There was a vulnerability that she brought to Emma that I loved.
Since it was the first performance I was sort of expecting there to possibly be some technical problems, but to my pleasant surprise there weren't any major issues. The only little snafu was during "His Work and Nothing More" when Richard White (Danvers) seemed to have mic problems: his voice was really muffled and it was hard to make out his lines.
Before the show started, Jeff Calhoun came out and gave a little speech to the audience. He expressed how gracious he was to have the opportunity to direct the show and he said that he would be in the lobby at intermission if anyone wanted to give him notes. I did actually spot him at intermission chatting with some folks.
I plan on hopefully seeing that show again at La Mirada before the production moves to San Diego. While the performances aren't polished yet, hopefully that'll change as the actors grow into their parts. Overall, I think I enjoyed it.
I apologize in advance for the length and for any typos this review might have. I'm typing this at almost 1 in the morning and I'm beat! :)
"You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!" - Betty Parris to Abigail Williams in Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Updated On: 9/8/12 at 03:51 AM
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