Adelaide Festival Review: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Posted on: Sun 5 Mar 2023
StageCraft meets TechCraft meets Film – all in real time.
The result is tension, suspension and horror as the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde unravels before us. We are party to this Shipwreck of his Reason.
We know the story, the potential good and evil that lurks in us all, and how Jekyll and Hyde can be seen to symbolize our choices. But here we witness the profound duplicity and the terror – every emotion trapped by live camera and projected up from the stage onto massive, swiftly moving screens.
The camera operators as pivotal as the tremendous actors, silently following their every move, capturing their very essence in stark black n’ white close-up. Boris Karloff memories are somehow conjured into the mix and only heighten the emotions. This is an unhappy tale.
Simple, mobile sets. Opening with beautiful lamp-lit, misty streets and then just moving shells of rooms – for we have eyes only for the actors, and their thoughts laid out before us on the screens.
One face split between five screens – fractured faces, fractured emotions. Overlays of two faces on one screen. Mirrored images of one face, one thought. A monstrous projection of a sneering Mr Hyde on five vertical screens, towering over all that is good beneath him.
A magical staircase, that stretches ever upward to the Laboratory Door, we see it as real – even though we know it denies physics and is a truly fantastic fabrication of film and lighting.
StageCraft, TechCraft and Film – this is a great production from every angle.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Review: Christina Hagger aka Dr Christina, The Thursday Edition of Festival City
