Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
d'après Robert Louis Stevenson
Mise en scène de Paul Stebbings
Avec Simone Mumford, Jean-Paul Pfluger, Sylas Shaw
Musique originale : Christian Auer
Durée : 90 min
A propos
Only a few novels achieve the status of myth, DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE is one of those rare books. Why should a rather short book, without a hint of romance, little violence and even less suspense (since surely every reader knows or guesses the identity of Hyde well before it is revealed), be so very popular? The answer must lie in its dissection of evil. Stevenson starts with a clean slate, he begins with no moral assumptions. This is, in our opinion, the key. Here we may indulge in biography: Robert Louis Stevenson was a deeply religious child. He hardly played, instead devoting himself to studying the bible and practising prayerful meditation. Then in his early twenties he lost his faith entirely, and remained an atheist to the end of his life. His writings were phenomenally popular and remain so, but TREASURE ISLAND and above all DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE can be seen as more than literary entertain- ment: they explore a godless world. If there is no such thing as sin, where is the root of evil? Stevenson, like Darwin and Nietzsche, was charting unknown seas
If there is no such thing as sin, where is the root of evil?
It is frequently assumed that DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE is the story of a bipolar man, his personality split by chemicals between the good and the bad. But this is a complete misreading of the text. Mr Hyde is indeed a distillation of pure evil, but Dr Jekyll does not purge himself of evil when he creates Hyde. On the contrary a careful reading of the book reveals Jekyll as more evil than Hyde since Hyde appears to have no choice whereas Jekyll has choice and chooses to release Hyde onto the unsuspecting world. What is more he is intoxicated by the thrill of becoming Hyde. He surrenders to the temptation to be his evil self, he is besotted by Hyde. Like any addict he has his moments of revulsion when he imagines he can free himself from his terrible vice. But he has no will power to resist the evil within himself that created Hyde. Eventually he can no longer choose when to be Hyde or not as his will has surrendered to his desire. His morality, such as it is, is crushed by his longing to be Hyde. So Jekyll is tortured not so much by regret as by the realisation that there is little difference between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Even the end of the book is ambiguous; did Hyde kills himself propelled by some inner memory of Jekyll? It is not clear and Stevenson means it to be so. There is no resolution because we can never resolve our own inner turmoil, the immoral exists within us all and we shall only deal with this monster by looking it in the eye.
Our production adds a character to aid this exploration of evil, someone to challenge both audience and author. A production should not just aim to stage a classical work, but to challenge it. The novel exists in its near perfect form, our aim is not to provide an easy three dimensional synopsis but to start with this masterpiece and go further, identifying and dramatising its themes and subtext. We aim to test this provocative novel and ask questions that arise from our own times and experience. And, as always, we wish to entertain, to revel in live theatre as an antidote to our impersonal digitalised age. We wish to invoke
the imagination and curiosity of our wide audience, and offer questions not answers. DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE is a thriller, a horror story and at times a grotesque comedy. We have tried to mirror this in our staging and hope we have done justice to a tale of injustice, violence and pure evil that is surprisingly moral. What strikes the reader and we hope audience member is the unflinching honesty of this window into the human hear.