Good morning Dear Readers, from hot and sunny Pasadena, California.
Last night I schlepped all the way down to Redondo Beach to catch a production of the Wildhorn/Bricusse Jekyll & Hyde.
I had never seen the show before, and was only familiar with two songs from it ("Bring on the Men" and "This is the Moment.")
The good news first: all three lead players were excellent in their roles. Mr. Kevin Bailey gave a tour-de-force performance as the titular character(s.) (Until last night, I was unfamiliar with his work.) Miss Misty Cotton (a local actress whom I favor considerably and who is a good friend of Dear BK) excelled as Lucy and Miss Kim Huber was lovely as Emma.
The production and direction were well done. The final scene between Hyde and Lucy was downright chilling. The supporting ensemble, on the whole, handled their challenging assignment well.
Musically, I thought the show has its moments. The two aforementioned songs, the love duet between Emma and Jekyll, and the duet with the two women are all quite effective. Much of the connecting material, though, is rather blah, and there are more than a few musicial scenes that would benefit from some judicious editing.
As for the piece as a whole, I was rather underwhelmed. The notion of duality in the human soul, it seems to me, is a rich metaphor, pregnant with ample opportunity for exploration. Such exploration appears to be MIA in this show. Grand Guignol with no development becomes tiresome quickly, indeed.
With the exception of Lucy, there is zero character development, and these characters (if you count Jekyll and Hyde separately) remain unidimensional throughout the course of the piece.
This musical takes two and a half hours to accomplish what probably could be covered in ninety minutes, and much more thrillingly in that tighter time frame.
As exhibit A, may I present a scene that is replayed, oh, maybe six times through the course of the show:
John Utterson: Henry! You look awful. What's going on?
Dr. Jekyll: Leave me be, John. And let no one--no one--enter my la-bore-a-tree. No one!
Isn't that thrilling repartee? Doesn't that just chill your bones? See what I mean?
Still, it was good to experience Mr. Bailey's performance, and the Misses Cotton and Huber are always a pleasure to see on stage.
