Review: JEKYLL & HYDE Brings the Drama at Split Stage

Frank Wildhorn's Jekyll & Hyde has long been a divisive show among theatre fans. Is it a worthy follow-up to the other literary-based megamusicals of the eighties and nineties, like Les Miserables, Martin Guerre and Miss Saigon? Or is it a trashy, boneheaded knockoff of Sweeney Todd with more power ballads and sexy dancing girls? (Theatre fans may recognize a very similar argument regarding Wicked over the last twenty years.) Thankfully, the passage of time and the changing of cultural arbiters has let us admit that both takes are true. Jekyll & Hyde is a big, ambitious show, and it's also a lurid, trashy pulp thriller in the EC Comics tradition. A good production, like Split Stage's current run directed and choreographed by Laura Wurzell, allows the show to be both.

Since the novel is almost a century and a half old, Wildhorn's musical (with a book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) makes no attempt to create a twist ending or a big reveal. Instead, we follow philanthropic scientist Henry Jekyll (Rob Jessup) as he attempts to create a chemical cure for mental illness. Instead, he accidentally creates a formula that separates ego from id, and splits his personality into gentle Jekyll and feral, libidinous Edward Hyde (Jessup again). Hyde becomes a hybrid vigilante/serial killer, taking down London's hypocrites, as Jekyll tries to get the genie back in the bottle. Along the way, both personalities become entangled with Emma Carew (Katie Aiello), Jekyll's aristocratic fiancee, and Lucy Harris (Elly Carr), a burlesque dancer and reluctant sex worker.

Jekyll & Hyde is not Sondheim. It's not a subtle show that requires intensely nuanced acting and deep characterizations, since these are melodrama characters who will tell you- in fact sing at you- exactly what they're feeling and thinking at any moment. The challenge instead becomes to create a character who is larger than life without tipping over the line towards ridiculousness, and the Split Stage cast toes that line, never crossing it. As the titular divided man, company founder Rob Jessup not only sings with great power and conviction, but throws himself bodily into the rigors of the transformation and possession sequences the role demands. Hyde's altered bestial voice is aided by an otherworldly digital effect on Jessup's microphone, meaning that we don't spend too much time watching Jekyll flip his hair back and forth across his face during an argument with himself. (That famous visual from the Broadway version is referenced in Act 2, but thankfully not maintained for an entire song.) The divide between Jessup's sincere acting as Jekyll and then malevolent scenery-chewing as Hyde recalls Willem Dafoe's equally gleeful dual role in the original Spider-Man film, nasty quips and all.

Alongside Jessup are two women strongly associated with the Split Stage repertory company over the last decade. Elly Carr, well-known as the repressed Janet Weiss in Rocky Horror, brings her bright, ebullient voice to the role of Lucy, while Katie Aiello, Jessup's wife and frequent collaborator, plays the straight-man role as the intelligent but emotionally grounded Emma. In a world like this play, where almost everyone is corrupt, ineffectual or both, these two strong women stand as foils to Jekyll and to each other: Jekyll takes pity on Lucy and tries to rescue her from her circumstances, while Emma is the only person whose kind words can touch Jekyll or whose criticism can make him doubt his plans for even a moment. When Aiello and Carr sing the famous duet "In His Eyes," it's a rousing performance, the kind of dueling-divas number that makes audiences jump out of their seats and cheer. 

The supporting cast is filled out with a who's who of the Split Stage family, all character actors who happen to sing and dance rather than a generic bunch of ensemblists. Anthony Massetto's equally massive height and operatic bass-baritone voice ground him as lawyer/confidante Utterson, sometimes the only sane man in a London gone wrong. Just as notable are the rogue's gallery of London intelligentsia who mock Jekyll and flee Hyde, a posse of Split Stage regulars lincluding Josh Reardon, Shelly Spataro, Josh LIst, Travis Milller, David Carver and Ben Wren. Christopher McAllister, himself a regular collaborator, leads a very tight seven-piece orchestra blending the organic sounds of reeds and horns with some very eighties synth effects. 

No one can accuse Jekyll & Hyde of making you think too much, of pushing the envelope or advancing the form or the conversations we're having. It's not Hamilton or Next to Normal, and isn't trying to be. Instead, it's comfort food: a melodramatic, campy, lurid throwback to a style that was once inescapable on the musical theatre stage. Anyone who grew up in voice classes or went to theatre camp will feel shivers of excitement and nostalgia hearing some of these songs again, maybe for the first time since those younger days. Like the classic horror movies we revisit every time we're sick or Halloween rolls around, this one has both heart and teeth amidst the cheese.