jekyll & hyde insight pack · friendship: friendship in dr. jekyll and mr. hyde serves to drive...

Jekyll & Hyde Insight Pack

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Contents

Page 2: Synopsis Page 3: Characters Page 4-5: Themes Page 6: Cast and Creatives Page 7: About the Writer, Robert Louis Stevenson Page 8-19: Illustrations and Set Designs from Cecilia Carey Page 20-21: Interview with Director, Tessa Walker Page 22-28: Classroom Activities

Introduction

Welcome to this REP Insight Pack, uncovering the chilling and mysterious

world of Jekyll & Hyde. Whether you are a GCSE teacher looking for a

dynamic learning resource as part of your English curriculum, a student

studying the play, a theatregoer wanting to explore the play further or just

genuinely interested in getting your teeth into this dark tale, this will help

you to explore the creative process behind this production; full of

classroom exercises and exploratory activities for Key Stage 3, 4 and 5

pupils. These resources contain background information on the play,

illustrations from the designer, interviews from the director and activities

for students that are perfect before or after a visit to the theatre. We hope

you find them useful.


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Synopsis

Evan Placey’s adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde tells a gripping story of morality, ethics and the inner struggle of our own human nature. The story takes on a female perspective and looks at Harriet Jekyll’s hope to recreate her husband’s experiment. In the words of the director this is what she believes the play is about:

“The play is quite a radical interpretation of the original because Jekyll and Hyde are both women; the story has been rewritten from the point of view

of Harriet Jekyll, who is Jekyll‘s wife, and it looks at the period after his death and at his rediscovery of science. He was working on the assumption that human beings are made of many different facets, and that there might

be a way to divide those facets, to create two, three, four people out of one.” The first half of the play is set in Victorian England and you’ll watch Harriet Jekyll trying to push against a very patriarchal society and get her voice and discoveries heard unsuccessfully. She then starts experimenting with her husband’s original invention, now her invention, to create Hyde. Hyde is able to do and say everything she can’t in Victorian society. All the way through you are really aware of this woman in modern clothes that you keep seeing, and you are not sure who she is. It transpires that the story we are watching in the first half is being rewritten by a woman called Florence, creating a blog supporting a movement called Fembot. This is a feminist group set in our time, who are rising up against inequality in our society. It’s about inequality, injustice and female rebellion. It’s very critical of a world that allows male aggression to be accepted at all levels of society, and women not being afforded the same acceptance of their ‘fire’; it’s about the many people we are in one person and it’s a critique of how little we have moved on in some ways, with Harriet Jekyll in the first half and Florence in the second half being very similar. “The whole system that we live in does not work and it needs to be dismantled. I think Robert Louis Stevenson would love it because it really feels that it has captured something of the original, thematically and completely transplanted it into another time. There was a theory that he was bipolar and it was before a time where that diagnosis existed and I think there is something of that which the writer, Evan Placey has captured.” – Tessa Walker.


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Characters

Harriet (Hattie) Jekyll - A physician

and scientist, and the wife of late Dr

Jekyll

Flossie Hyde – The evil creation of

Harriet Jekyll

Gabriel John Utterson – A Detective

Sally – Circus Entertainment

Abbie – A servant

Officer Rose – An officer

Officer Ray – An officer

Josephine – A suffragette

Paper Boy

Priest

Florence – A young woman

Lucy – Owner of the Fox and Hounds

Gertrude – A Victorian lady

Georgie – Patron of the Fox and Hounds

Martha – A Victorian lady

Millie – Patron of the Fox and Hounds

Ida – Jekyll’s friend

Izzy - Patron of the Fox and Hounds

Doctor Lanyon - A scientist and rival to

Dr Jekyll

Doctor Roberts - A scientist

Doctor Finn - A scientist

Doctor Maxwell - A scientist

Tommy – A rent boy

Judge Richard Enfield

DCI Renford

DC Williams

Johnny – Florence’s friend


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Themes

Good Vs. Evil: Good Vs. Evil is arguably the play’s main theme. More specifically, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is about the good and evil which exists in all people, and about our struggle with these two sides of the human condition. In this play, the battle between good and evil resides in one person. The question becomes, which is superior? Since Hyde seems to be taking over, one could argue that evil is stronger than good. However, Hyde ends up dead at the end of the story, suggesting a weakness or failure of evil. The residual question is whether or not good can be separated from evil, or whether the two are forever intertwined.

Repression: Repression, whereby people are forced to behave in certain ways and restrain certain behaviour, is indisputably a cause of the troubles in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The repression here is that of Victorian England: limited sexual freedom, internalised violence, and limited expression of emotion, at least in the public sphere. Everything is sober and dignified, and happiness is not necessarily prized as a virtue to be attained. The more Dr. Jekyll’s forbidden appetites are repressed, the more he desires the life of Mr. Hyde, and the stronger Mr. Hyde becomes.

Friendship: Friendship in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde serves to drive the plot forward. Aside from basic curiosity, Mr. Utterson is compelled to uncover the mystery of the evil man because of his friendship with Dr. Jekyll. In trying to unravel the secret, his many friendships deliver crucial pieces of information. In this sense, friendship acts as both a motivator and an enabler. As for the friendship between Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll, it’s certainly not as unconditional as the loyalty Mr. Utterson bears for Dr. Jekyll. Instead, it’s fraught with competition, anger, and eventually an irreconcilable quarrel. We see that friendships can be ruined by differences of opinion.

Appearances: Appearances figure in the novel both figuratively and literally. Dr. Jekyll definitely wants to keep up a façade of respectability, even though he has a lot of unsavoury tendencies. In a literal sense, the appearances of buildings in the novel reflect the characters of the inhabitants. Dr. Jekyll has a comfortable and well-appointed house, but Mr. Hyde spends most of his time in the "dingy windowless structure" of the


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doctor’s laboratory. Other disreputable quarters of London are described as well; this is the stomping ground of Mr. Hyde.

Science: In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, science becomes a cover and justification for supernatural activities. Dr. Jekyll seemingly brings about his predicament through scientific means, as opposed to finding a magical amulet to unlock some evil, as you might find in other stories. Dr. Jekyll’s brand of science, however, veers towards the "transcendental" (indeed, supernatural), while Dr. Lanyon adheres to a more traditional set of scientific notions. This disagreement causes an irreparable rift in their relationship, especially after Dr. Lanyon witnesses Dr. Jekyll’s transformation with his own eyes.

Curiosity: In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, curiosity drives the characters to seek knowledge. This curiosity is either suppressed or fulfilled in each character. Curiosity lacks any negative connotations; instead, characters who do not actively seek to unravel the Jekyll and Hyde mystery may be viewed as passive or weak.

Lies and Deceit: In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the plot is frequently driven forward by secrecy and deception; Mr. Utterson doesn’t know the relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and he wants to find out. Also, by omitting the scenes of Mr. Hyde’s supposedly crazy debauchery, Stevenson allows our imaginations to run to wild and eerie places.

Violence: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde details two crimes of violence against innocent and helpless citizens: first, a little girl, and second, an elderly man. The violence in the story centres on Mr. Hyde, and raises the question of whether or not violence is an inherent part of man’s nature.

Religion: God and Satan figure prominently in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as many general references to religion and works of charity. As part of their intellectual lives, the characters discuss various religious works. One sign of Mr. Hyde’s wickedness, for example, is his defacing Dr. Jekyll’s favourite religious work. Mr. Hyde is also frequently likened to Satan.


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Cast and Creatives

Director Tessa Walker

Associate Director Philip Morris

Designer Cecilia Carey

Lighting Designer Simon Bond

Sound Designer/ Composer Iain Armstrong

Movement Director Sarah Worth

Associate Movement Director Lucy Wild

Fight Director Alison de Burgh

Voice Coach Barbara Houseman

Production Manager

Company Manager

Milorad Zakula

Jeanette Maggs

The cast of Jekyll and Hyde is made up of 17 talented Young REP members

from our Young REP Seniors Ensemble.

For more information about our Young REP programme please contact

[email protected]


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About the Writer: Robert Loius Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer and is best remembered as the author of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Treasure Island (1883). Stevenson was plagued by ill health throughout his life. This did not stop him travelling throughout North America, Europe and the Pacific. Born in Scotland, he was born into smothering conformity and raised a Calvinist. This left him with a fascination with pre-determination and man’s ability to shape his own destiny, which he explored within Jekyll and Hyde. We also see parallels between the suffocating expectations placed on men of standing within Jekyll and Hyde and what was expected of Stevenson as a young man. Stevenson did not adhere to these expectations, choosing travel and a literary career above the engineering work of his forbearers. Stevenson’s wife was at once his greatest supporter and harshest critic. The first draft of the piece, which allegedly took Stevenson around three days to write, was burned by the author after his wife claimed she felt the piece was too allegorical. Stevenson wanted to write a story, not create an allegorical account (where characters represent a certain theme or concept). The final frantic re-write took Stevenson between three and six days to complete, during which time he was sick and bed ridden. It is disputed as to whether Stevenson was using drugs heavily at the time of writing, which may have impacted upon the story.


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Illustrations from the Designer – Cecilia Carey

The REP is a producing theatre, which means we make most of the things that you see on our stages. The costumes are created here, the set is created here, all the props etc. Below are illustrations, sketches and model box designs by Cecilia Carey, the designer for our production of Jekyll and Hyde.

Set Design

Cecilia Carey on her design:

“This story is set in the Victorian era and then moves into the modern day, but it needs to flow between multiple locations and feel like it is constantly transforming. The large cast becomes an energetic ensemble, a 'force' always present, like scientific components and experiments, to help create all the various scenes on a large stage. The design has taken much of its influence from 2D Victorian ‘Toy Theatres’ where there is a strong use of layered scenery flats and a sense of perspective to create this Victorian world in its traditional colour palette, giving an austere feel reflecting the mood of society at the time. There is a strong deliberate theatre language in motion with scenic flats, ropes, ladders, lighting and pulleys all visible to the audience. This layered scenic painterly world is to contrast starkly with the single room that much of the second act takes place in - confining the characters to a bare, grey-blue police interview room”

Cornfield


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The above images are sketch model photos before they were finalised and before colour was added.. These are the 'white card' stage of the set design process.


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Model Box Pictures


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Costume Design


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Interview with the Director - Tessa Walker

How relevant do you feel Jekyll & Hyde is to today’s social climate and how relevant is it to today’s audience? There’s a real critique of the world we live in at the moment and there is lots of references to Irish doctors that refuse to give abortions, to the enormous pay gap between men and women, across the country and in many major organisations, to the way young women’s complaints on online harassment is dismissed, so it feels it is absolutely written for and about this time. The hero Florence or Harriet, really create this very multilayered, quite complex, very funny, very teenage, very appealing young woman. It looks at what is acceptable in terms of our scientific research and what is not, and who has a dominant voice in society and who doesn’t. It’s been created in a very modernist, feminist framework. This is still studied in schools but very little has been done to address the huge gender inequality that we face now. That’s what Evan has done, whilst also being very respectful to the original. What drew you to directing this play? Well I love Evan’s work, I think he is an amazing writer and he is particularly brilliant at writing for teenagers. He is very bold, for someone that is not a teenager he can definitely capture what it means to be a teenager today and that certainly is resonant with the young company we are working with. It is a true reflection of the world we are in today. And also the opportunity of working with young people is fantastic, it has been a long time since I have worked with 17 young people. They have got amazing ideas; they are really intelligent they’re really funny. It is a very engaged and energetic room to be in. But what I think Evan has done with the story is amazing. I haven’t read the original like I said before I read this and when I went back to the original felt it very very similar but on the surface, it looks completely radical, he has made these radical extreme choices, to which some extent are, but I think that really successful adaptations are not about literally moving a story from one form to another, which is really difficult but I think successful adaptations capture the spirit of what the original is and rework it for the world it is being represented in and I think he has done that really brilliantly. I also love working in the Main House because it has such a large scale, this play could


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be in the studio but it is epic the storytelling, it’s very melodramatic, I mean that in a good way and lots of the kids have not been in The House before and is a great experience to try and allow them to understand what it is like in the space and how to use their voice and breath in it. What has been the highlight for you during the rehearsal process so far? Definitely working with the young REP, they are about halfway through and bit by bit you see, in moments, you see it beginning to form and because you’re working with young actors, who are amazingly professional and who are brilliant, you see performances grow and grow, it’s very different to when you work with professional adult actors. So although I love working in the Main House and I love the play, I have really enjoyed working with young people again. On the opposite side what has been the biggest challenge so far? I don’t think there has been one; maybe we are yet to encounter it. It will be tricky getting onto that stage. We have done a lot of work with Barbara Houseman, who is a brilliant vocal coach, voice expert, and she has been helping us in rehearsals. I think that is what I am most worried about, just literally hearing people. It’s not about being louder it’s about being able to control your breath properly. I think that will be the biggest challenge, trying to get it to breathe in that space but that’s the biggest challenge with all productions. This is just a technical challenge that we would encounter anyway, but it has been nothing but joy so far. What do you want the audience to take away after seeing your production? I want them to feel like they have been surprised but in a really good way. Even though it is an adaptation, I think many people would assume that the mechanics of the story are the same -but they are not. So I would like people to feel really surprised, invigorated by the new adaptation of it, I would really like people to realise how brilliant all those young actors are. As all of the characters go to very extreme places, and do morally questionable things, I would want the audience to reflect on that a little bit because Evan paints a picture of a world that is very much about the difficulties of young women. Although this is quite an extreme version of that there is a massive truth in the piece, in terms of how unequal thing still are, I would want people to have some sort of response to this.


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Drama Activities for Students

Activity 1 – Working from Script

Below is an extract from Act 1, Scene 7 of the adapted script of the REP’s 2019 production of Jekyll and Hyde. Remember, Dr Jekyll is a female character in this adaptation.

Read through the script and explore different ways of staging this scene. What is going on? What is Jekyll after? How do others react to Jekyll’s views and how does this make her feel? What sort of dramatic conventions can you use explore Jekyll’s emotion’s in this scene?

7.Royal Society of Scientists A group of male scientists. A formal meeting. Jekyll: Thank you all for taking the time to meet with me this afternoon. The Royal Society meant a great deal to Henry. And if he never said as much, please let me be the one to do so. Maxwell: Mrs Jekyll, Henry meant a great deal to us too. He may have been lost in his final years but that does not negate his many more years of brilliant scientific work. Rest assured the door was always open to him here. As it is to you. Jekyll: Thank you I have been looking through Henry’s laboratory, his notes. Well… Finn: Absolutely. What did I say, did I not tell you? We discussed the matter before you arrived. And it would give us no greater pleasure than to accept all of his work for our archives. A great legacy to the man. Jekyll: That’s very, thank you, very kind


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Finn: And I expect it will also mean you have some more room in the house. They all laugh. Jekyll: That’s very kind. Thank you. Finn: Less to clean around. They all laugh again. Jekyll: Yes, thank you. But. It wasn’t what I wanted to ask. I. Henry was theorizing on the nature of man. That… Man is not truly one, but truly two. Or. Actually. Man is a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens. None of us here are simply the people we are presenting ourselves to be in this room. And what if there was a way to be that somebody else, to do and say all the things you can’t or are afraid to. I’m still getting my bearings on the work but… What I’ve come to ask. I’ve come to ask if it’s possible for his research to continue. Maxwell: I’m here. Are you? Jekyll: Pardon? Maxwell: Are you here? Jekyll: I don’t [follow] Yes. I’m here. Maxwell: And it’s you, the good, respectable Harriet Jekyll, wife of the late Dr Henry Jekyll, asking this council, the Royal Council, which has been meeting like this for over 200 years, to carry on the research?


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Jekyll: …Yes. Maxwell: But how can we be sure? Jekyll: I’m not sure I… Maxwell: How can we be sure it’s you? And not. Another you. Or someone else for that matter. Jekyll: I see. You’re joking. Maxwell: This is not a joke. How will we know that part way through we won’t be dealing with a different denizen in your body? The men smirk, laugh. Jekyll: I think you’re misunderstanding what the. If you would let the research continue then that will perhaps make things clearer.


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Activity 2 – Devising in Pairs In pairs ask student to label themselves as Jekyll and Hyde and create bits of movement to explore the two characters using the followings exercises: Exercise 1 Round – By – Through: Ask young people to find a way to travel around their partner using three movements; a movement where they go through round each other, a movement where they go by or along each other, and a movement where they go through each other. Ask them to think about how they move in the space making sure their actions are identical for each of the three movements. Then develop this activity for people to move as their characters and explore their character’s movement more. Exercise 2 Mirroring: Ask young people to begin my mirroring their partner around the room, they are interact with things in the room, interact with other pairs, but eventually they need to main the character of either Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde, every time you (the facilitator) shouts switch, so that the leadership in the mirroring changes, but also the character they both represent changes. Exercise 3 One, Two, Three: Ask young people to count to three between them. They say one number each, and restart after three, it should always be rotating between each partner so they both would be saying 1, 2, or 3 at some point. After a little practice, replace 1 with an action to resemble Mr Hyde. Again after a little practice, replace 2 with a phrase said by Dr Jekyll. Lastly replace 3 with a movement to resemble the theme of Good Vs Evil


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Activity 3 – Gender Stereotypes

Separate into group of 3 or 4, all girls or all boys. This is so that image does

not influence perception for the performance side of the exercise.

Devise 3 scenes that demonstrate a role/job in society that is commonly

found to be carried out by a male or female and act them out, e.g. a milkman

delivering milk. The scenes can involve multiple genders interacting.

Be sure NOT to refer to each other by female/male names, he/she, her/him,

etc.

Perform the scenes to your class and then ask the audience whether they

could identify which characters were male or female.

This exercise is there to allow people to discuss gender stereotypes, so

post-performance ask people why they performed certain characters in

certain ways. Ask young people if they believe there are certain roles that

cannot be carried out by a certain gender and explain why.


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Activity 4 – Agree/Disagree

This is a disagree/agree activity. Assign one end of the room to represent

‘agree’ and the other as ‘disagree’. A statement will be read out and pupils

have to stand in an area of the spectrum that represents how much they

agree or disagree. If, for example, you disagree/agree but you are not

100% certain, you can stand closer to the middle, but you CANNOT be on

the fence, i.e. in the middle of the room.

After everyone has decided where they stand, the tutor can pick a few

pupils to explain their position in the spectrum.

Statements

At the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, men play a best-of-5 sets to

win a match and women play a best-of-3 sets to win a match. Women

should play the same number of sets as men. Agree/Disagree?

Genetic modification in humans is not an ethical issue?

Agree/Disagree

It is more important to look healthy than to eat healthily?

Agree/Disagree

It is better to tell a white lie than to deliver a painful truth?

Agree/Disagree

People that speak the loudest have the most important things to say

and should be listened to? Agree/Disagree

Extension: Feel free to add more statements to this activity.


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Activity 5 – Post-Performance Character Breakdown

Ask the pupils to pick a character from the play that they found interesting.

Ask them to list three things that they admired about them and why, e.g.

their personality, their behaviour, their ambitions, their motivations, etc.

Likewise, if they disliked anything about their attributes, ask them to list up

to three things. Pick pupils to share their thoughts and reasons for

admiring or disliking their selected character. They can use the below

template to help.

Character Name:

Character’s Job:

List 5 Words that

describe the character

for you

What was your initial impression of the character?

What journey does the character’s story go on? What do they want? What’s the problem that

comes in the way? Does the character get what they want and how?

Sketch Your Character

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