A devilish remake of ‘Jekyll, Hyde’

You may know the story of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” but not the way playwright Jeffrey Hatcher tells it.

Hatcher has adapted Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novella with a twist. One actor (Thomas Becker) plays Jekyll, and four others play the various faces of Hyde — sadistic, brutal, sexual, manipulative, etc.

And you may have seen some version of “Jekyll and Hyde” before — maybe the old movie classic that won Fredric March an Oscar, or the remake that got Spencer Tracy some scathing reviews.

But you haven’t seen anything like the visually stunning version that the Blue Barn Theatre opened Friday night, just in time for Halloween crowds to shudder at.

Hatcher’s clever reimagining and Susan Clement-Toberer’s equally smart direction make for one deliciously theatrical evening. Strikingly original transformations of Jekyll to Hyde and back again are sometimes done with multiple actors who act in tandem, and sometimes they interchange or solo entire scenes.

It takes skillful movement and careful timing to make this thing work, and it wasn’t quite all there yet at a Thursday night preview.

But close enough to admire what’s coming. A missed mark here, a slightly early or late light cue there were easy enough to overlook when what came in between was so fascinating, innovative and attractive to the eye.

While the characters and Jennifer Pool’s costumes retain the story’s Victorian roots in London, Martin Scott Marchitto’s modern, clean-line scenic design (bravo) and Carol Wisner’s lights (double bravo) combine with Pool’s creations just like all those incarnations of Hyde, working together to create something more — something in shades of gray, with splashes of red, and only here and there some black and white.

Mostly, though, gray. Hatcher seems to be saying Jekyll isn’t all white, and Hyde isn’t all black, and the two actually debate each other as Hatcher messes with our minds.

Bwa hahahaha.

Randy Vest, Ben Birkholtz, Lee Osorio and Teri Fender are all fiendishly good as Hyde, especially Osorio as his very blackest side.

Each of these actors shines in other roles as well: Vest as Jekyll’s respected colleague, Birkholtz as an ego-mad physician who is Jekyll’s sworn enemy, Fender as Jekyll’s butler and a murder witness, Osorio as Jekyll’s doctor friend with a thick Scottish brogue.

Laura Leininger is particularly good as Elizabeth, a psychologically complex character who falls in love with Hyde, and she’s fun as a nasty old rum pot as well.

Becker dominates the production as desperate Jekyll, who realizes too late that he can’t contain the behavior of his alter ego, nor control when Hyde comes and goes.

The acting feels a little big for the intimate 88-seat theater at times, and the actors seem to pace nonstop. But then, melodrama isn’t meant to be underplayed.

This production’s hallmark is the striking images that stay in your mind: silhouettes against a wall of white or vivid red; bright red doors that slide on and off on a track; faces lit at sharp angles from above and below; silver-trimmed crates that suddenly glow white.

And murder, murder, murder.

Contact the writer:

444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com