A study of the dark side that lurks in us all, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” has a Victorian tingliness that seems appropriate for the time of year when cadavers and cretins are knocking at our very doors.
Lawrenceville’s Aurora Theatre has smartly timed its production of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic to coincide with Halloween and delivers a well designed, nicely acted telling under Susan Reid’s direction. But Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation, in which a number of actors inhabit the spirit of Dr. Henry Jekyll’s murderous alter ego, is a bit tricky. Though well intentioned and definitely work a look, it is ultimately so fractured in structure and story-telling technique that it will leave some viewers more than a little confused.
Back in the day, a dramatic treatment of the “strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” might have used masks, makeup and wigs to depict the character’s grotesque physical transformation. (Imagine stage directions to read: “He drinks potion. Writhes and winces. Sneaks into mask. Assumes fiendish pose.”) In Hatcher’s contemporary take, several actors explore the various facets of Dr. Jekyll’s divided personality— the inner terror and outward denial, the sense of déjà vu, the hallucinations, the voices in his head.
Hatcher’s premise sounds okay in theory, but in the theater the conceit feels vague and tentative, mechanically rough and, here at least, not all that scary. At the beginning, it’s hard to get a clear grasp on the relationships, motivations, plot twists and telling clues that run through the Gothic thriller, which predates everything from “A Picture of Dorian Gray” to “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”
All that said, Brik Berkes makes a fine Henry Jekyll, coming off more like a regular guy than a dandified Frankenstein. While James Donadio’s ghoulishness is a little overwrought, Matt Felten can be genuinely menacing. (They, along with Shannon Eubanks, Scott Warren and Kelly Criss, play a variety of roles.) As the central love interest Elizabeth Ann Jelkes, Suehyla El-Attar is beautiful and affecting. Eubanks is particularly is charming as Jekyll’s tottering, shuffling old butler, Poole, in a long coat and wig.
According to the program notes, the designers were inspired by the “steampunk” style, which riffs on the vocabulary of 19th century fashion, industry and science fiction, when writers such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells were imagining their futuristic tales and technologies. This explains John Thigpen’s striking set designs, which juxtapose a period phrenological chart with a sculpture made from cogwheels and old machine parts and forming the outline of a human head. Linda Patterson’s Gothic costumes are handsomely tailored and accessorized — just right in a Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter kind of way.
In the final analysis, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is an enduring tale of crime, corruption and the tricky nature of the human heart, but the idea of the divided psyche is by now well trod and familiar. Aurora offers a solid reading of an adaptation that tries hard but never quite gels.
Theater review
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”
Grade: C+
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. Through Oct. 31. $16-$30. Aurora Theatre, 128 Pike St., Lawrenceville. 678-226-6222. www.auroratheatre.com .
Bottom line: Good acting and design; shaky adaptation.
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