Daddy Issues
3 / 10
No matter who's doing it or where it's being done, 'Jekyll & Hyde' is still tuneless and tiresome, a musical for those who prefer power ballads to show tunes but find 'The Phantom of the Opera' too challenging. Moreover, this production has the extra-special disadvantage of starring Constantine Maroulis, lately of 'American Idol' and 'Rock of Ages.' Mr. Maroulis has absolutely no business playing a romantic lead in a Broadway musical. His singing is whiny and insipid, while his acting recalls what Somerset Maugham is supposed to have said when he visited the set of the 1941 film version of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' and saw Spencer Tracy thrashing through a scene: 'Which one is he now?' The rest of the cast is dull, and the production, staged by Jeff Calhoun, looks as though it had been built to travel (hence the absence of stage blood, which keeps laundry bills low).
