Peeking into Filigree Theatre's Production of Jeffrey Hatcher's version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, Running February 7 - 23, 2025
by Dr. David Glen Robinson, January 21, 2025
Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. has been a popular cultural phenomenon since its 1868 publication. It launched to fame on the bizarre premise that an erudite and somewhat repressed Victorian doctor could induce a complete personality makeover by ingesting a well-researched combination of tinctures and elixirs (for 21st century people, think “Molecule Chasers of Ayahuasca”). The story fit well with the Victorian fantastic literature of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and the grandmother of them all, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Jeffrey Hatcher belongs to the twenty-first century, and in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, his 2008 adaptation of the “classic tale of depravity, lust, love, and horror,” as the internet puts it, he adds a sprinkling of magical realism by breaking the character of Mr. Hyde into four parts portrayed by four actors. This innovation is theatrical red meat for director Elizabeth V. Newman. She notes, “There is, however, flexibility in how to stage it.” Hatcher's concept alone will create a keen interest in the play for those familiar with Filigree Theatre (Photograph 51, Above the Fold, Suddenly Last Summer). Anyone new to the company is in for a treat.
Despite the monsters it portrayed, Gothic horror relied on strong themes of the power of the human mind and the dualism of good vs. evil. Hatcher short-circuits the dualism (as did Stevenson to a degree) by observing a seed of evil in the good as well as a seed of good in the evil and examining how either might grow. The result is far more expressionistic than descriptive. The portrayal of happenings in the mind rather than on the foggy streets of London provides imaginative openings for sets and lighting, just the thing for designer Patrick Anthony.
Director Newman knows Austin talent and has recruited from among the best. For Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, she has engaged Scot Friedman, Arielle LaGuette, Bailey Ellis, Beau Paul, Mike Ooi, and Molly McKee. The outlook for stunning theatre in February is auspicious.
Filigree Theatre's premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is February 7, 2025 at its exclusive season venue Factory on Fifth, 3409 East Fifth Street, Austin. The play is the second offering in Filigree’s sixth season, Masks and Mirrors. It will run Thursdays- Saturdays at 8 p.m. and at 3 p.m. on Sundays until February 23rd, 2025.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Hatcher)
by Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher
Filigree Theatre
February 07 - February 23, 2025
February 7 - 23, 2025
Factory on Fifth, Austin
Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Tickets $27.68 or $43.67 (including fees), available HERE
(Offer 11/15/2024):
