March 2009

Dear Subscriber:

IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE that we’re about to open the last shows of this season. I want to thank you for your support. Your enthusiasm about the theatre and engagement with our shows certainly could be felt by our actors at every performance. From the blazing Frost/Nixon to the sublime matchmaking in Emma to the joy of one person becoming all the characters in This Wonderful Life to the unexpected resurrection of a martyr in Saint Joan to a breakthrough by a teacher to a silenced soul in The Miracle Worker, we have been on quite a ride this season on the Mainstage. Our Off-Ramp productions of The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Little Dog Laughed certainly pushed some envelopes as did our Studio Theatre shows Evie’s Waltz and Blackbird. The Imaginary Theatre Company entertained young people all across the region with its three plays. All of these shows had “were you there?” moments that were exciting and thrilling for all of us. We are pleased you have been part of this season and hope you will continue be part of The Rep family and maybe introduce new friends to the work here, too. Live theatre is remarkable because it freeze-frames what for so many people are the essentials of the human experience—love, triumph, tragedy—and transports each of us to those moments in our own lives. But the picture wouldn’t be complete without two final additions—Jeffrey Hatcher’s smart and clever adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the Mainstage and Stephen Temperley’s Souvenir in our Studio Theatre.

HATCHER’S RIVETING SCRIPT brings to light the truly intricate nature of Stevenson’s text in a way that few stage or screen reworkings of the original 1886 novella have chosen to do. For most of us, the mention of Jekyll and Hyde conjures up images of Fredric March, Spencer Tracy, or possibly even Abbott and Costello, all wrestling with clearly polarized portrayals of good and evil—the successful, well-groomed, respected physician versus the back-alley, brutish, loathsome fiend. While this makes for high melodrama and, in some cases, very impressive special effects, it is not emotionally complex drama. What Stevenson’s work intends and Hatcher’s script delivers is a story that is both entertaining and dramatically satisfying—a duality in itself, if you will. Stevenson describes this careful balance in his essay, “A Gossip on Romance”: “This is the highest and hardest thing to do in words; the thing which, once accomplished, equally delights the schoolboy and the sage, and makes, in its own right, the quality of epics…. It is one thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting logic, the complications of life, and of the human spirit; it is quite another to give them body and blood…The first is literature, but the second is something besides, for it is likewise art.”

SO IT IS THAT HATCHER’S retelling of this story begins in much the same way that Stevenson’s original account does, at the end, with legal counsel Utterson revealing in reverse order the strange case of Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde, piquing the school boy’s interest and promising intellect as well as intrigue for the stage. Hatcher’s use of the full cast as narrators is, in a way, a return to Stevenson’s structure rather than the more familiar use of Jekyll’s first person account of events. But what makes Hatcher’s version both authentic and uniquely contemporary is his appropriation of Hyde’s role across four actors, including both men and women. This splintering rather than clean two-part dissection of Jekyll is, of course, a literal variation from the novella, but it is in keeping with the spirit of it. Stevenson was fascinated by the idea of ordinary, respectable individuals seemingly stepping outside of themselves to commit uncharacteristic acts—he devoted at least three fictional works and one essay to the theme—but what his writings seem to suggest is not a simplistic division of good versus evil within the human mind but something far more complex. Again, from “A Gossip on Romance” he writes: “There is a vast deal in life and letters both which is not immoral, but simply a-moral; which either does not regard the human will at all… where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose to do, but on how he manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and hesitations of the conscience, but on the problems of the body and of the practical intelligence.”

THIS BRINGS TO US the idea that definitions of good and evil may be less clearly determined by nature and more so by ever-changing motive. In Hatcher’s play, we see that summoning good or evil is a formulaic matter, ritualistically cultivated by a potion, a change of clothes, or a different environment. But controlling either or divining one from the other is much more complicated as the frighteningly real but seemingly ephemeral Hyde slips effortlessly from actor to actor and Jekyll becomes increasingly desperate and frenetic in his efforts to preserve what he perceives to be his world. Hatcher’s addition of a love interest for Hyde only heightens this element, as Hyde’s devotion to another person at once softens him and sends Jekyll into a self-destructive spiral of fear. The message then becomes less about the overwhelming power of evil over good and more about the fluidity between the two. Humanity is neither exclusively good nor bad but rather inherently, universally flawed with the amazing potential for redemption through love. Stevenson galvanizes this concept in his essay “Pulvis et Umbra”(dust and shadow): “Man is indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. But where the best consistently miscarry, how tenfold more remarkable that all should continue to strive; and surely we should find it both touching and inspiring, that in a field from which success is banished, our race should not cease to labour.” Hyde then, may never be fully reformed, but he is made human by the fact that he is also never beyond the reach of redemption as long as he labors in that direction. It is this paradox that makes this case truly strange and strangely encouraging.
 
WE ARE PLEASED TO WELCOME Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s Producing Artistic Director, Ed Stern, back to helm this thrilling co-production. He teams with scenic designer Robert Mark Morgan, costume designer Elizabeth Covey, lighting designer Thomas C. Hase and sound designer Rusty Wandall to create a rapidly shifting world that redefines itself as quickly as Jekyll and Hyde’s shifting personas. Anthony Marble (Twelfth Night) takes on the role of Jekyll while Hyde manifests himself variously in Anderson Matthews (The History Boys), Bernadette Quigley (The Crucible), Scott Schafer (Dracula) and Kyle Fabel. Katie Fabel is Hyde’s love interest, Elizabeth.

OUR STUDIO SEASON rolls to a rousing finish with Souvenir, Stephen Temperley’s tribute to singer-socialite extraordinaire, Florence Foster Jenkins. A wealthy divorcee with a passion for music, Jenkins settled in New York and, on a whim, began giving vocal concerts out of her suite at the Ritz-Carlton. The concerts grew in popularity throughout the 1930s until in 1944, she performed for a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall. All of this would be relatively unremarkable were it not for the fact that Jenkins was tone deaf and completely unaware of it. Far from pleasing, her singing sent her audiences into peals of laughter that she interpreted as a heartfelt response to the music. By her side throughout her entire bizarre career was her accompanist, Cosme McMoon. Souvenir chronicles their strange journey together and features Neva Rae Powers and Edwin Cahill (The Musical of Musicals—The Musical!) under the direction of Michael Evan Haney. Be sure to catch this special treat in the Studio before it closes March 29.

WE CLOSE THE SEASON with two very different but equally compelling looks at what can take place inside the human head. The thread that runs through both of these pieces is Stevenson’s notion of the “noble struggle”—the fight for that which seems unattainable in spite of its unlikeliness of coming to pass. Hyde loves against his better judgment and Jenkins follows her passion without regard for her skill. We are pleased to be sharing these pieces of life with you and wish you a wonderful spring and summer. We look forward to the fall.

See you at the theatre,

Steven Woolf
Artistic Director