Baylor Theatre's "Jekyll" a taut thriller

By Carl Hoover

Baylor Theatre's production of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" reminded us there's more to theater than a crude duality of drama and comedy.

"Jekyll," Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," was an engaging thriller whose psychological and philosophical overlay complemented the story without bogging it down.

The Baylor production, smartly directed by Josiah Wallace, whipped through the tale, an eight-person cast nimbly changing through multiple roles and scene changes.The first half covered so much territory in an hour that the second half seemed slightly slower. Conceivably, Hatcher could have written a 90-minute piece without intermission, though both actors and audience would have gasped for air at its end.

At the play's center is Dr. Henry Jekyll (Francisco Lopez Jr.), a serious, somewhat priggish and self-righteous London doctor whose experiment in isolating the darker impulses of his human nature to destroy them has resulted in an alter ego of a violent, lustful Edward Hyde.

Rather than portray Jekyll and Hyde with a single actor, as most film and stage adaptations do, Hatcher uses multiple actors, each sporting a distinctive derby when in the character, and with telling effect.

Jekyll tries to restrain and end his alter ego before the authorities investigating a series of brutal deaths, including Jekyll's antagonist in the medical school where they work, track Hyde to his door.

Hyde proves a wily opponent, matching each attempt by Jekyll to frame and catch him with blackmail and whispers seeking to seduce the doctor's thoughts. Another complication for Jekyll is the hotel chambermaid Elizabeth (Katie Amis) who falls for Hyde, though the doctor perceives him as a totally depraved beast unworthy of love or sympathy.

In fact, it's Jekyll's conflicted reaction to Elizabeth, torn between physical desire and  disdain for her more open sexuality, that signals his increasingly darker and murderous behavior as Hyde proves ever elusive.

Wallace's cast (Patrick Herndon, Stephen Hersack, Jimi Wallace, Carissa Jade Olsen, Skyy Pamilton and Amber Herzog joining Lopez and Amis) was uniformly strong, playing their several characters in broad, identifiable strokes that enabled the fast pace.

Lopez's Jekyll, in contrast, was more complicated, with flashes of self-righteousness and social stiffness hinting his pure "good" side is as improbable as Hyde's pure "evil" — one of Hatcher's main points.

Baylor's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" boasted impressive production design and execution. Michael Sullivan's set design was striking, particularly the dominating set piece with a top level featuring wrought iron fencing and gas lights on tall poles to suggest, with stage fog, a Victorian London. The door behind which Hyde retreats from his nighttime prowls glows with dim red light, another nice touch.

Christi Coufal-Tuya's costumes effectively showed their characters' occupation and class, while allowing for rapid changes, and Zac Main's lighting balanced the need for dramatic focus and mood-setting in a fluidly moving play.

The one production misstep lay in the music played under some scenes. In one case, it made dialogue hard to hear and several times simply seemed distracting filler as if a stage thriller needed a movie soundtrack to hold an audience's attention.

This production, as its sold-out audiences found out, didn't.

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