Jekyll and Hyde | Review
On Saturday 21st March I was happy to accompany my mum to the Hawth Theatre in Crawley to watch a spectacular performance of Jekyll and Hyde directed by David Hutchinson for Sell a Door Theatre Company. One of the reasons I was so keen to see this production is that I am currently analysing the text for my English literature GCSE. I hoped that the production may give me a deeper understanding of the classic story of Jekyll and Hyde.
The production I watched on Saturday was somewhat different to the classic Jekyll and Hyde tale I am studying. Adapted by Jo Clifford, this version of Jekyll and Hyde is set in 2021 and the production therefore had a futuristic tilt to it.
There were only three actors in the production therefore the small cast got the opportunity to showcase their talents. There were two men in the show, Nathan Ives-Moiba, who played the parts of Jekyll and Hyde and the other actor was Lyle Barke who played Mr Utterson. In the book, Mr Utterson is the protagonist but in this show Jekyll was made the main character.
Despite both male actors performing brilliantly, my favourite actor by far was the only woman in the cast, Rowena Lennon [interview here]. She had a variety of characters to play and, in my opinion, conquered all of them. Rowena is incredibly versatile and proves throughout the production that she has command over a great number of accents and acting styles.
The set was very clever. The actors used a great revolving mechanical structure centre-stage, this allowed them to show different locations by simply spinning the set.
The lighting design by Charlie Morgan Jones was used very effectively to create stunning atmospheric effects.
I really enjoyed the performance as it was very diverse and although unoriginal it still had its own twists added in. Many sexual-orientation twists were encompassed in the show, including Utterson’s hidden longing for Jekyll. I enjoyed the additional ‘twists’ because it gave each character more depth.
Despite a lot being left to the imagination during the show such as the blood-thirsty, extensive cruelty and animalistic gruesome actions carried out by Hyde I still found it very believable and emotive.
In conclusion I would to say that it is a shame that the performance at the Hawth of Jekyll and Hyde was not advertised to GCSE students at the local schools as it fits in with the current GCSE AQA coursework. Admittedly, it IS different to the traditional Jekyll and Hyde story, mainly due to the change in time period but the show still conveys the same messages and picks up on the same symbolic undertones in the original story. Symbols such as social restrictions and messages such as the duality of human nature are the symbols and messages we are expected to mention in our GCSE coursework. Going to see this Jekyll and Hyde production at the Hawth, I am sure, would have helped a lot more students, as it has for me, to come to terms with the complexity of the tale.
Reviewed by Charlotte O’Neill for Theatre South East