By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Theatre Critic<\/p>\n
Leave it to playwright Jeffrey Hatcher to bring theatergoers a new twist on a Victorian tale, Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s \u201cStrange Tale of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.\u201d Hatcher\u2019s literate, amusing adaptation plays in its San Diego premiere at ion theatre\u2019s BLKBOX @ 6th & Penn through Nov. 20.<\/p>\n
No bloated \u201cNicholas Nickleby\u201d this, \u201cDr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde\u201d is lean and mean, with a company of six playing all the roles, which drolly include four, count \u2018em four, Hydes. This is no doubt Hatcher\u2019s send-up of all the manifestations of Hyde seen through more than a hundred years of stage adaptations of the original novella, to say nothing of film versions and the overblown Frank Wildhorn musical, which reappears with startling frequency.<\/p>\n
Hatcher, author of \u201cCompleat Female Stage Beauty,\u201d explores all the Hyde stereotypes, from hulking, deformed Hyde to a new one of his own invention, Byronic romantic hero type redeemed by the virtue of a good woman, a kind of Hatcherite \u201cBeauty and the Beast.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his exploration, Hatcher uses four Hydes (Patrick Duffy, Susan Hammons, Nick Kennedy and David McBean), and only one Jekyll (Walter Ritter). Jekyll remains Jekyll, while the Hydes take on numerous additional roles, such as Jekyll\u2019s friend Utterson (Kennedy), an attorney investigating the brutal murder of Sir Danvers Carew (McBean). <\/p>\n
Does anyone not know Stevenson\u2019s split personality protagonist, the \u201cgood\u201d Dr. Jekyll, who as a matter of scientific curiosity creates a potion that retrogresses him to the \u201cbad,\u201d baser Hyde of his human nature? Hatcher provides a twist by offering Hyde redemption in the form of a woman named Elizabeth (Rachael VanWormer), whom he truly loves. <\/p>\n
Guess whom the real bad guy turns out to be? You got it, but there are plenty of twists, turns and (believe it or not) suspense along the way to Hatcher\u2019s stunning closing scene. The fun is in what happens when what you think you know meets up with Hatcher\u2019s wry send-up on Elizabethan mores and beliefs.<\/p>\n
Director Kim Strassberger has assembled a fine company of San Diego actors. Matt Scott creates a minimal set that consists mainly of the door between good and evil, and Melanie Chen\u2019s sound design wryly underscores the turbulent emotions and suspense, as only Victorians could know. Most importantly, perhaps, the onlooker gets to see new facets of the old tale as well as become witness to new dimensions of familiar actors doing the unexpected. McBean is his usual arch self no matter what he does; VanWormer displays new depth of determination and femininity; and Duffy, usually seen at Lamb\u2019s Player\u2019s Theatre, is a fully dimensional, sympathetic yet still formidably threatening Hyde. The others, in multiple and complicated roles, lend excellent support, particularly Kennedy as Utterson.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde\u201d continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 4 p.m. Saturdays through Nov. 20, $10-$25, ion theatre\u2019s BLKBOX @ 6th & Penn, 3704 6th Avenue, Hillcrest, www.iontheatre.com or (619) 600-5020.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Theatre Critic Leave it to playwright Jeffrey Hatcher to bring theatergoers a new twist on a Victorian tale, Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s \u201cStrange Tale of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.\u201d Hatcher\u2019s literate, amusing adaptation plays in its San Diego premiere at ion theatre\u2019s BLKBOX @ 6th & Penn through Nov. 20. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":731,"featured_media":235380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"The original split personality: ion explores \u2018Jekyll & Hyde\u2019","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11593,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-no-images","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/731"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}