There’s an old Carole Bayer Sager song ‘Don’t Wish Too Hard’ that starts, ‘Don’t wish too hard/or then you might get it/and then you might find/ that you didn’t want it at all.’
Bayer Sager’s maxim could definitely apply to Dr Jekyll the main character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE which Kip Williams has adapted for the stage. He is a respected scientist, well thought of in society. He knows that he has a dark side to his personality, and wants to explore it further. He comes up with serum that, he hopes, when he injects it, will let him experience his dark side.
The experiment succeeds beyond his expectations. With each injection he transforms into Mr Hyde, a dark natured, sinister man. He gets a high, a rush, after each transformation. Things start to go awry when one night he involuntarily turns into Mr Hyde. He no longer has control of his creation, a bit Frankenstein like. His dark side is taking over. His goal then becomes to kill off Mr Hyde, so that he can become a decent, civilised man again.
As we take our seats in the theatre we see a stage that is empty apart from a large black wall/screen, we can’t really make it out, that is placed in the centre of the stage. It is deceptive and doesn’t prepare us for this epic production, a masterpiece of the cine-theatre genre.
Williams’ vision for the piece is fully realised. He is a sorcerer and we are are just spellbound for the production’s two hours.
Such an epic production isn’t possible without a wonderful team. The two actors, Matthew Backer and Ewen Leslie are great. Technically, the production is very intricate and he has a great creative team to being it together – designer Marg Horwell, lighting designer Nick Schlieper, composer Clemence Williams, sound designer Michael Toisuta and video designer David Bergman are at the top of the list. Then there were the multiple camera operators who worked tirelessly on stage creating the stage movie. They fully deserved the applause they received at curtain call.
This was mesmerising theatre, involving a kind of theatrical sorcery and awesome technical wizadry,
One of my favourite quotes is from Pablo Picasso. ‘The purpose of life is to find your gift. The meaning of life is to give it away’.
Kip Williams is a gifted theatre-maker and we are fortunate to be the recipients of his gift.
STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE is playing the Roslyn Packer Theatre until the 3rd September 2022.
Production photography by Daniel Boud
