by Corinna Archer

          Before David Harrower’s internationally acclaimed play Blackbird begins, the audience already knows they are about to see something different.  A new seating configuration in City Theatre’s Lester Hamburg Studio Theatre is just one of the many ways in which the design for Blackbird enhances the play’s unsettling journey and challenges the audience’s expectations. Harrower’s Blackbird is not your typical love story, but a disturbing encounter between Ray and Una, who are as surprised by what unfolds when they confront their past relationship as the audience is.  Not only do the set and costume designs make intriguing first impressions on the audience, but they also intensify the relationship between the characters and the discoveries that are made by the audience during the course of the play.  Although the design may appear realistic in a way that immediately draws the audience into the world of the play, it is also full of unexpected metaphors that address the characters’ psychological and emotional experiences, asking the audience to reconsider the way in which “appearances can be deceiving.”

            The alley seating configuration that was initially suggested by the director Stuart Carden is perhaps the most immediate surprise that the design for Blackbird has in store for its audience.  The first time this theatre has been reconfigured in almost ten years, the new seating arrangement places the audience on either side of the stage so that each audience member is not only confronting the action on stage in a new way, but also sees the members seated opposite while they watch the show.  Just as Blackbird’s characters are never certain if they can trust what they see in front of them, the audience is insecure in this unfamiliar relationship to the performance and must constantly reassess what is happening on stage.

          The seating configuration also distances the audience from the realistic design, underscoring the play’s thematic issue of appearance versus reality.   At first glance, the set, designed by Tony Ferrieri, looks like a “slice” of an authentic office break-room, complete with un-matching furniture, vending machines, lockers, and overhead fluorescents.  Realistic details like cup-rings on the table, electrical wiring running up the walls, and various food wrappers littering the set give it a “thrown-together” and non-descript look.  Like the set design, the costume design gives the characters authenticity from the very beginning of the play.  In his khakis and blue collared shirt, Ray looks like a “regular guy” who fits into the play’s break-room setting, while Una appears to be a stylish, “sexy young adult,” as costume designer Crystal Gomes described these characters.  However, while the characters and their physical environment at first seem reassuringly familiar to the audience, this sense of security is quickly shattered by the play’s unusual story.

Tony Ferrieri's set design. Photo by Suellen Fitzsimmons.

          The design never lets the characters, or the audience, get comfortable, underscoring the tension between Una and Ray that is present from the very first lines of Blackbird. The alley seating configuration forces the set into a long, narrow corridor that becomes even more box-like and closed by the low-hanging fluorescent lights and beams that place a “lid” on the stage.  This pressurized space makes the intensity of the action on stage even more threatening and suspenseful: the audience never knows when the lid might blow.  The break-room itself sets the tone of the play with its cold blues and grays, which Ferrieri chose to support the apprehension and distance felt by Una and Ray during their initial interaction.  The harsh, bare fluorescents also help to make the space uncomfortable, both for the characters and the audience.  Like the play itself, this set is hard to look at in a powerful and provocative way.  Just as Una and Ray must face an unpleasant reality in this small, stark break-room, so must each person sitting in the house of the theatre, forced to confront the difficult questions that Blackbird poses.  The costumes add to the tension by clearly contrasting the way Ray and Una present themselves and relate to the set.  Ray, who tries to remain anonymous, wears his work clothes as a kind of office “camouflage.”  Una, on the other hand, sticks out in her trendier, darker city look, and has no way of hiding on stage.  Like the checkerboard pattern on the floor, Ray and Una are even visually in conflict with one another, engaged in a complex game throughout the play.

Steve Pickering and Robin Abramson in costumes designed by Crystal Gomes. Photo by Suellen Fitzsimmons.

          As the play progresses, the design moves further away from reality to metaphorically address the play’s various themes and questions that relate to the emotional and psychological state of the characters.  The trash left on stage, for example, which at first only appears to be another element of realism, making the space feel “lived-in” by Ray’s coworkers, becomes an effective visual metaphor for the issue of abandonment that arises during the course of the play. Other prominent issues, such as who to blame when ordinary rules and values cannot explain what happens, whether or not you can trust who someone says they are, or what it means to be in the wrong place at the wrong time are all underscored by Blackbird’s surprising design.  Just as the play’s compelling yet disturbing story asks the audience to reconsider even the most instinctive values such as right and wrong or real and false, Blackbird’s design challenges the audience to experience the play in a new way that enhances the power of Harrower’s unique but troubling love story.

By Jeffrey Hatcher

When a writer takes on an adaptation assignment like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there are always advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include a built-in interest, a plot that doesn’t have to be ginned-up out of nowhere and audience expectation. The disadvantages all have to do with audience expectation as well. If the audience knows the story and its characters so well that their preconceptions are etched in stone, it’s very easy for the adaptation not to live up to them. Reduced to its basics, it’s the “James Bond/Harry Potter/The Joker Doesn’t Look Like That” problem.

The interesting thing about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is that while most audiences think they remember the book, what they really remember are the ideas and the images: the handsome, respected doctor and the misshapen, villainous brute; the notions of duality, good versus evil, repression, addiction and psychosis. We remember various film and TV adaptations, cartoons and comic books and parodies like Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

So, for me, the trick of the game seemed to be this: give the audience what they recall – the top hats, the canes, the fog-shrouded streets of London, the laboratory, the bubbling beakers, the doctor and his doppelganger; but feel free enough to develop ideas and complicate characters in ways the audience won’t expect. The problem with a classic like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as with a classic like Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice, is that if you give the audience exactly what they expect — the theatrical equivalent of reading the Reader’s Digest version of the book — they’ll be greatly disappointed. A stage adaptation must be theatrical, and the decision to produce a new version of an old classic suggests there must be a reason for doing so, that something new has been discovered or something old has been brought into higher relief.

So, in this adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I hope audiences will be satisfied with the sensational thrills that go with the territory. But I hope they’ll also have their expectations tweaked in such a way that on occasion they think, “Oh, I never would have dreamed of that” or “I haven’t seen that in Jekyll and Hyde before,” and that when they leave, a very old and great piece of literature has been given a vivid retelling.

by Karin Maresh

City Theatre is opening its 2009-2010 season with a bang!  Artistic Director Tracy Brigden has chosen to start the year off with a production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a play she describes as giving audience members the delicious satisfaction of seeing a story we know well.  Audiences already familiar with how the story ends find satisfaction in seeing the story played out before them, and knowing, for example, when Dr. Jekyll is lying.  We are also most certainly drawn to the play’s theme of duality, of the conflict between good and evil, of love and violence that is present in all of us.

One of the reasons Brigden says she chose the play is because it is unlike most contemporary plays in that it is a relatively new piece with a period, or historical, setting – Victorian London.  It isn’t often that City Theatre has an opportunity to produce a play that requires period costume pieces, such as corsets and top hats.  The play’s quick scenes and use of multiple settings (twenty-one to be exact) also provided all involved with a challenge they relished – how to keep the play from coming to a halt between scenes.  To solve this problem, scenic designer Tony Ferrieri has kept everything on stage to a bare minimum, so that a gurney is used to represent an operating room and a single table represents an office.  There has necessarily been no attempt to create a naturalistic setting.  Since the scenic needs of the text are similar to those of a Shakespeare play, Ferrieri has designed a space that can be transformed quickly and easily into multiple environments.  The lighting design by Christian DeAngelis will aid in this by using lights to isolate areas of the stage for different scenes.  Costume designer Susan Tsu has faced a challenge of her own in finding ways to differentiate between the twenty-one different characters in the play, all of whom are played by only six actors.  Since several of the actors play multiple roles, including four actors who take on the role of Mr. Hyde, Susan has designed a base costume for each that can be interpreted in more than one way, or altered slightly with the addition of accessories.

The industrialized look of London in the late nineteenth century has influenced all of the design elements for the production.  A steel walkway suspended over the stage and a spiral staircase figure prominently in the scenic design, as does the floor of the stage which will be painted to represent damp, wet cobblestones.  Lighting from DeAngelis will create long shadows, hard angles, and a haze in the air reminiscent of film noir (think Double Indemnity or Touch of Evil) that, when put together with the walls of Ferrieri’s set will give the space a cold, claustrophobic feeling.  Amidst all of the darkness on stage and in the text are splashes of color.  Hatcher’s Hyde is pure passion, capable of extreme violence and sexual love, a quality represented in a single red door on the stage.  It is a doorway into the mind of Jekyll and his inner demon, Hyde, but also, as Ferrieri believes, a representation of the passion that runs through all people.  Color also finds its way into the stage picture in bottles suspended over the stage during the laboratory scenes and bits of reds and purples on the mostly black and grey costumes.

The inspiration for the look of the production has emerged primarily from two sources: Monet’s Waterloo Bridge paintings, and the Goth movement, specifically Steampunk Goth, which Tsu considers to be more romantic than other subsets of Goth and, thus, more relevant to the romance and passion in Jekyll and Hyde.  In fact, Tsu has capitalized on the similarities between the Victorian clothing represented in the daguerreotypes and photographs she researched for the production and contemporary Goth clothing, as well as contemporary fashion designers, resulting in costumes that are hybrids of the two periods.  Brigden suggests that this will make the period costumes seem more real and less distanced from our twenty-first-century world.  The Monet painting, with its depiction of an industrial, yet romanticized nineteenth-century London, provided Tsu, DeAngelis, and Ferrieri with their color palate of cool colors – blues, greens, and purples – for their designs and much more.  The arches of the bridge in Monet’s painting, for example, have made their way into the steel walkway above the stage, and fragmented images of the painting itself serve as part of the set’s backdrop in order to visually reflect the multiplicity of the human brain suggested by the play.  For DeAngelis, movies pertaining to killers, such as old Sherlock Holmes films and From Hell, a 2001 film about Jack the Ripper, also served as sources of inspiration for his lighting design.

City Theatre audiences may remember playwright Jeffrey Hatcher for plays such as Compleat Female Stage Beauty and Murderers.  With Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he has crafted an original and very theatrical approach to a classic story of love and horror.  That and the design and directorial team’s concepts for the production will undoubtedly provide audiences with a fresh and creative take on the Robert Louis Stevenson Gothic novella.

by Dana Shaw

Since the classic 1886 story first hit the stands, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has enthralled readers. The idea of one body containing two identities, one good and one evil, has since woven its way into the public consciousness. If ever we see two minds residing in a single person, we immediately think “That’s just like Jekyll and Hyde!”, though in the 120 years since they first appeared, Jekyll and Hyde have taken on many other forms.

Cartoons illustrate a great example of Jekyll and Hyde in the modern world. A person struggles internally with doing the right, but boring, thing or the fun, but evil, thing. This struggle is represented by an angel and a devil who whisper suggestions in the person’s ears. This physical manifestation of good and evil as different parts of the same personality stems directly from Jekyll and Hyde. Other adaptations of the characters may be seen throughout popular culture today: the Hulk, a calm physicist who transforms into a gigantic and strong monster when he is angered; Dorian Gray, whose outer beauty belies his ugly inner nature, shown only on the portrait that grows older and more hideous with time; Two-Face, the Batman villain obsessed with duality and the nature of good and evil. Different aspects of the characters Jekyll and Hyde have formed the basis for many characters with similar natures.

But it is not only the characters of Jekyll and Hyde that have gone through these adaptations. The story itself has inspired hundreds of films and plays. Following are a few of the best-known and the most unusual among them.

1886: Robert Louis Stevenson published the original novella.

“The man trampled calmly over the child’s body.” Illustration by Charles Raymond Macauley for the 1904 edition of The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (publisher: New York Scott-Thaw).

1887: The first stage adaptation, written by Thomas Russell Sullivan and Richard Mansfield, was performed a year-and-a-half after the release of the novella and is now considered to be a classic. Mansfield played the titular roles, transforming himself onstage from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde with no more than lighting effects, posture shifts, and differing expressions. Mansfield briefly became a suspect in the case of Jack the Ripper because he could so convincingly shift himself from a respectable person to a monster in a matter of seconds. From the beginning, adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde have included female roles, even though women were conspicuously absent from Stevenson’s original story. Mansfield continued to perform in this role until his death in 1907.

Richard Mansfield in the dual role depicted in this double exposure: as both the noble Jekyll and the evil Hyde in the original stage adaptation. Photo by Henry Van der Weyde. Library of Congress

1910: The first film adaptation, Den Skaebnesv Angre Opfindelse, opened in theatres in Denmark. Jekyll wakes at the end to discover all of his interactions with Hyde were merely a dream.

1915: Vitagraph produced the first of many gender-bending Jekyll and Hyde films, titled Dr. Jekyll and Madame Hyde.

1920: The most famous silent film version was released in the United States. Starring John Barrymore, it was the first to feature Jekyll as a medical doctor rather than as the chemical researcher that he had been in the original. It established Jekyll as the archetype of the Nice Guy who does not deserve the horrible things happening to him. Hyde was a spindly spidery monster.

1925: Stan Laurel presented Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde, the first parody of Jekyll and Hyde in film. With the help of Dr. Pyckle’s 58^th Variety potion, Pyckle transforms into Pryde, who commits such vile acts as stealing an ice cream cone. The transformations are spoofed by featuring them in rapid succession and with comic quickness.

1931: This was the film starring Fredric March that implanted the modern view of Jekyll and Hyde in the public consciousness. Hyde became an overly sexualized character, portrayed as a predator. Also, Hyde’s appearance was that of a human being gone backwards through evolution, a digression into an ape-like monster. It is considered by many to be the most faithful film adaptation to both Stevenson’s novella and Stevenson’s thematic intent.

1941: Richard Abbot’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde displayed a concern about modern science that was common to the era – World War II instilled a sense of distrust that hailed from the production of nuclear weaponry. This was one of the last major stage adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde for the next few decades.

Also in 1941, the 1931 film version was remade starring Spencer Tracy. This was the first time Jekyll’s name was pronounced as it is now, rather than the “JEE-kill” that Stevenson would have used. Like Abbot’s play, the film displays a distrust of the nature of science, asserting that it was science that ruined Henry Jekyll’s life. Tracy played both Jekyll and Hyde, though there was little visual distinction between the two roles in the film.

1953: Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was produced by Universal Studios. Abbott and Costello played two American policemen who travel to England to research the techniques of the British police and, in the process, stumble across Jekyll and Hyde.

Shenanigans include a chase scene through a wax museum, a potion that turns Costello into a mouse, and numerous Hyde monsters who give chase to Abbott and Costello toward the end of the film.

1963: The film The Nutty Professor premiered. Though it was not the first of the many post-World War II comedic adaptations of the Jekyll and Hyde story, it remains the best known. It features nerdy Professor Julius Kelp transforming into the attractive smooth operator Buddy Love in order to woo the woman of his dreams. (In 1996, a remake featuring Eddie Murphy was released, changing Julius Kelp’s character into the obese Dr. Sherman Klump.)

1972: Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde was produced, the first film since Dr. Jekyll and Madame Hyde to present Hyde as a woman. In addition to exploring the usual theme of good and evil in a single person, the film explores the idea of one person’s bisexuality as Jekyll and Hyde pursue, respectively, female and male lovers.

1976: Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde was one of many blaxploitation horror films released in this era. Jekyll’s potion turns dark animals white and the working title of the film was Dr. Black and Mr. White.

1988: Anthony Perkins of Psycho fame played Jekyll and Hyde in another film adaptation called Edge of Sanity. The transforming agent is no longer the potion, but a mixture involving large amounts of crack cocaine.

1990: The first two musical stage adaptations appear within a few months of one another. Jekyll and Hyde the musical opened in New Brunswick, NJ. John Cullum played the titular roles. Another Jekyll and Hyde musical opened in the Promenade Theatre in New York City, very loosely based on the story of Jekyll and Hyde.

1996: The film Mary Reilly showed the story of Jekyll and Hyde through the eyes of an Irish maid, a minor character in the novella. It was praised for its dark look at both the life of Mary Reilly and the Jekyll and Hyde story.

1997: The best-known musical adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde opened on Broadway. It features two leading ladies: Jekyll’s fiancee Emma Carew, daughter of Sir Danvers Carew, and Hyde’s love interest Lucy Harris, a prostitute at the local club. It ran for over 1,500 performances and attracted a large following of self-proclaimed “Jekkies.” The show was nominated for four Tony Awards and won a Theatre World Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and two Drama Desk Awards.

2009: Abel Ferrara began shooting a new adaptation of the Jekyll and Hyde story, starring Forrest Whitaker and 50 Cent.

2009: Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde opened in a co-production with the Arizona Theatre Company and the San Jose Repertory Theatre. It is now playing at the City Theatre in Pittsburgh from October 17 through November 8.

This list does not begin to cover all of the adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde that have surfaced over the years. There are over 200 versions of Stevenson’s original story, and we can be certain that there will be even more in the future.

Often on the first day of rehearsal, just before the design presentations and the first read-through, the director will give a brief presentation of his or her thoughts to cast and company to kick off the process. As we approach performances of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, we thought our readers would find it interesting to hear what Tracy Brigden had to say at her first rehearsal.

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde resides in our collective conscious regardless of whether we have ever read the 100-page novella. What we think of when we talk of a Jekyll and Hyde is a person who is extreme in flipping his moods or someone who lives an upright life in public and does dark deeds when no one is looking. However, this is really a story about a pioneer—an explorer whose scientific and human curiosity has led him to the most uncharted territory, more dangerous than any remote jungle or mountain top. It is a story about the unconscious and what really lurks beneath the surface in all of us—regardless of our class or upbringing or outward morality. 

Do we all have a secret desire to fully embrace our id, our seven deadly sins, to become all get and no give, and see what that’s like? Do we harbor the notion that this stifling condition called “civilized” society is holding us back from our true selves? If we were not fettered and polished and corseted by faith and manners, who would each of us really be? Jekyll says, “Coursing through our veins is the river of our old ways, before man created mortality…”

In modern society is there an encroaching pressure to be “normal”? The idea of behavior being controlled by pharmacology is rampant: if we are a little odd or emotional or overly social or not happy enough our chemistry should be altered to bring us back to “normal.” As Jekyll explains to Utterson, “If we could find the chemical balance that would isolate these rages, these horrors, wouldn’t we pursue their cure?”

What is unique about Jeffrey Hacther’s adaptation is that it veers away from the black and white notion of Jekyll as all good and Hyde as all evil. They each are complex: Hyde feels love for Elizabeth, Jekyll’s pride and vanity make him hate Carew; Hyde wants to sacrifice himself for the life of Elizabeth, but Jekyll is ready to forsake her to save his own…HIDE. With four Hydes roaming the stage and gradations of good and bad in each character, the play points up the notion that we all have a dual personality and it is nurture, not nature, that brings out different aspects of each of us. 

The backdrop of the play is Victorian London, a time of great discovery and change but also a time of turmoil and huge disparity between the classes. For instance, the median age of death of a person of means was about 45—while the median age of a poor person was 25. Poor, uneducated people—especially poor women—had few choices in working and living opportunities. The housing and sewage conditions for the poor were deplorable—disease and crime were rampant. The life of a servant offered better living conditions—but the pay was miniscule and the hours slave-like. Many turned to prostitution, grave-robbing, and pick-pocketing before they would give up and go to the worst place in London—the Poor House. 

The medical profession was just expanding to include specialists for ailments like lung disease which was an epidemic from the pollution and factory work. The introduction of ether into the medical repertoire made child birth and surgery much easier. A doctor like Jekyll would have been associated with one of the teaching and research hospitals for the poor. Most people of means had doctors come to their homes for exams, leeching, childbirth, or surgery. Both Jekyll and Hyde the book and the play highlight this class disparity and highlight the importance for a man like Jekyll to maintain his good social standing within the community and his profession.

It is important to remember that the first readers of the novella had no idea that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. There is speculation that Stevenson meant for his readers to think that Jekyll—a bachelor who had taken a great interest in this young man Hyde—was actually having a homosexual affair with Hyde and being blackmailed by him for money and protection. Apparently this was a common scheme at the time—to blackmail a man to cover up his gay affairs—even if he wasn’t having them! However, the important point is that when Lanyon sees Hyde turn back into Jekyll, it was as much a shock to the readers as it is to Lanyon. 

Hatcher has borrowed Stevenson’s technique of using collected testimony, diary entries, and newspaper accounts to make the narrative more true and real. This technique serves the suspense, as the individual narrators do not know the outcome of the story. The veracity of the testimonies is further endorsed by the reliability of the witnesses—two doctors and a lawyer who use their professional expertise to investigate the mystery that surrounds them like a detective story, trying to get to the bottom of Jekyll’s will, his strange association with the mysterious Hyde, and the murder of Carew. The sensational outcome of the mystery is enhanced by the fact that the horror not only occurs within London but within a respectable member of society. 

Our design pushes the envelope of the period, and the set and costumes and lights and sound will have a more modern nuance to them, which will make the production more visceral and vivid and theatrical. However, we are going to embrace the melodrama of the horror story, and its surprise and violence, and hopefully get a few gasps and groans and even some nervous laughter in the process. Most of all, even though our audience certainly knows the answer to the mystery, I hope they will still be riveted by this very human story and come along for the ride as if they don’t know what’s going to happen.

Isabel (Izzy) D’Angelo, one of the 10th Annual Young Playwrights Festival playwrights, continues her conversation about the experience with Julie Tosh, her dramaturg. (See Part 1, with a more complete intro, posted on October 1.)

Playwright Isabel D'Angelo (right) listens to the read-through of playwright Hannah Newman's (left) play at the first rehearsal for the Young Playwrights Festival.

by Isabel D’Angelo and Julie Tosh

Julie: So, Isabel, after weeks of rehearsal on “Betrayal,” it’s finally come to show time! You got to see the show with several different audiences and had time to reflect on the entire experience. Since this is our last time to sit down together and chat, why don’t you let us know how the experience was for you. First of all, what was it like to see the school matinee?

Izzy: Seeing my play with a huge portion of my school was overwhelming. I literally cannot explain how nerve-racking it was. Their response was so pleasing though. I’d say I enjoyed the audience on that morning the most because their reactions were not stifled at all, a true Wash High trait. I’ve been getting really positive feedback from the kids at school, so I am very happy with the way that turned out.

Julie: It had to be a real bonus to have your teacher there as well. How was the experience with your family different?

Izzy: Watching my play with my family was definitely different from watching it with my peers.  I wasn’t quite as nervous so I was able to look around at the audience’s reactions. That was really interesting. My mom picked up on a lot of little things I added into my play because she is the one who got me hooked on Hitchcock and could identify his influences.  

Julie: You know, audience reaction is a big source of information for writers. Being able to see their reactions and judge the silences can tell a playwright a lot about what is working with a play. I noticed the rapt attention of audience members. That was a great sign! How has the overall experience affected you or changed you as a writer?

Izzy: Needless to say, this experience has been really amazing. I hate saying “amazing” because it’s so nondescript, but I cannot think of a word that actually captures the way I feel about the whole thing. It was totally unique and exciting, and it definitely gave some confidence to a timid writer. 

Julie: Any advice for playwriting hopefuls?

Izzy: My advice to playwriting hopefuls is to keep writing, submit even if you have doubts, and don’t ever, EVER delete anything!

Julie: Working together has been a wonderful experience, may I even say amazing. It may have had something to do with those first milkshakes, but making a good connection between playwright and dramaturg can make for a very rewarding revision process and lead to fruitful rehearsals.

Until next year…this is Isabel D’Angelo and Julie Tosh signing off.

David Whalen, who has been seen at City Theatre in Speak American and Opus, is playing Dr. Jekyll in City Theatre’s upcoming Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We’ll be checking in with David occasionally throughout the rehearsal and performance process to see how things are progressing in the rehearsal hall and how the show evolves–as a show always does with an audience in the mix–once it’s in performance. As he was about to start, and then began, rehearsals this week David talked about preparing for a new role and the discoveries of early rehearsals.

Carlyn: You’ve been at this a while. Can you share some thoughts on how you feel when you enter a brand new rehearsal process?

David: I love entering a new rehearsal process. Getting to know the director, fellow cast members, exploring the play with all these minds and viewpoints. It’s always thrilling.

Carlyn: What is exciting to an actor about Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

David: This adaptation is very exciting—it really is an actor’s piece. Just a door, lights, chairs, and the actor’s imagination. Can’t wait to bring it to life with the actors and director.

Carlyn: What have you been doing to prepare for rehearsals?

David: I do a lot of research for any part—I’ve read the play probably at least 50 times, read the novella, investigated the time period. Since I’m playing a doctor, I thought it was important for me to know about medical procedures of the time. Drugs that were used. Henry Jekyll seems to me to be a modern-day biotech researcher—searching for new cures to things that trouble him. “If we could find the chemical balance that would isolate these rages, these horrors, wouldn’t we pursue their cure?” I love that line. Searching for a way to find “serenity” and “peace of mind” —that is a very noble start. Unfortunately—it can and does lead to ignoble behavior. It makes me understand that he is experimenting for good—not melodramatically pouring test tubes of various ingredients back and forth. (Cue maniacal laughter and gothic organ music.)

David Whalen studies his costume renderings for Jekyll at the first rehearsal.

Carlyn: Other than research for a role, what kind of textual and/or character exploration do you do on your own prior to the start of rehearsals?

David: My favorite teacher in grad school would say “IT’S ALL IN THE TEXT”—I thoroughly enjoy finding the operative words, clues about relationships, past history, conditioning forces (i.e., time, place, weather), and finding the most economical and specific actions to play. It really comes down to thorough detective work.

Carlyn: What did you discover this week as a result of the readings and table work [the close exploration, questioning, discussion of the text, section by section, before the actors get up “on their feet” to begin “blocking” the stage movement]?

David: What’s most interesting about hearing the play with the actors for the first time is the different voices of the characters. They’ve been in my head for a long time and it was exciting to listen to the sounds of these characters. Each actor has their own take on the people—so the words take on new life, sometimes very different than what I had in my head.

Being around the table and going through the text is always enlightening. We were able to gain new insight, deepen and bring to the surface clues in the text as to time constraints, relationships, motivation. All these will be used when we get on our feet and begin to move around in the world of the play.

Carlyn: In this early period of rehearsal when you’re still holding a script, but on your feet, what are you working to achieve—physically, psychically, however—towards character development (as opposed to simply blocking the movement)?

David: I like to get the script out of my hand very soon. Once we’ve blocked a scene, I try to attack it the next time without the pages holding me back. This allows me to dare to be brave, try things, push the paranoia of the character, pull it back when necessary, conceal it when needed, etc. I really want to bring out Jekyll’s passion for his work. His intense curiousity is compelling to me.

I think Dr. Jekyll is a bit restrained physically at first and as his Hyde(s) comes about then there is room for all kinds of metamorphoses of movement. Seductive, oppressive, dominating, etc. I’m touching on that now and I love that Tracy [Brigden, the director] encourages and guides that along. I love rehearsing, “rehearing” the play each time we work.

Carlyn: What brings out your “Hyde”?

David: I think we’re all a bit Jekyll and Hyde (in real life, I’m 70% Jekyll and 30% Hyde). I actually think that’s where Dr. Jekyll starts—then the percentages shift throughout the play—that’s where it gets scary, funny, erotic, appalling, etc.  

Lazy people bring out my “HYDE” more than anything—

But, I keep coming back to one of the question the play raises, “What sort of man would want the beast, when all he sought was peace of mind?”

The dark side of human nature is very seductive—as my wife says, “You’re in touch with that, Dave.” (In a healthy way!) No need to go into those details!!

And that’s an impossible-to-miss cue to wrap this segment up so David’s Hyde can remain hidden—rightly so! Look for our next check-in with him soon. Thanks, Dave!

The 10th Annual Young Playwrights Festival takes place this week, with productions of six plays by thrilling young voices (grades 7-12) from our region, and an array of free workshops open to the same age group on Saturday and Sunday. For the full schedule of performances and workshops, click here. Isabel (Izzy) D’Angelo from Washington High School is one of the playwrights receiving a production in this year’s Festival. In her play Betrayal, Alex and Lily are the picture-perfect couple. Together they’ve built a loving marriage, a comfortable daily routine, and a traditional, cozy home: husband, wife, and little dog. But a dark secret reveals the crack in this picturesque façade, and an unthinkable deal seals the betrayal that will propel the perfect household toward a tragic and inevitable end. (To see other playwrights and play descriptions, click here.)

by Isabel D’Angelo and Julie Tosh

Playwright Isabel D'Angelo (right) listens to the read-through of playwright Hannah Newman's (left) play at the first rehearsal for the Young Playwrights Festival.

Julie: The clock is ticking as the Young Playwrights Festival approaches. While the director, actors, and crew are picking up the various tools of their work, I’m setting down my pencil and thinking cap for my role as dramaturg. Izzy and I (that’s Isabel D’Angelo, author of the play “Betrayal” and me, Julie Tosh) have been attending rehearsals after spending the last few months digging into her script. Speaking as Izzy’s dramaturg, we’ve had a pretty good time delving into her film noir style drama. So much fun in fact that City Theatre’s Literary Manager and Dramaturg Carlyn Aquiline asked us to talk about our process for working through revisions and notes and also give some hints as to what made us a great playwright-dramaturg match. If you want to know the real inside scoop, I’d say it had a lot to do with the milkshakes we had at our first face-to-face. It was a chance to get to know one another and for me to learn about Izzy’s writing and what drew her to create the dark world of her play.

I was wondering, Izzy, if you wanted to weigh in on that. What were the impulses that sparked the writing of “Betrayal,” and what, besides the milkshakes, helped you feel comfortable in that initial meeting?

Izzy: Well, I think our great relationship can definitely be attributed to the delicious milkshakes at Kings. I’m not really sure what made me feel comfortable at that first meeting. I remember thinking that you seemed really enthused about my play, and I was still getting used to the idea of actually liking what I wrote. That is probably what helped the most, your belief in my play. As for what sparked my writing, I’d say my avid movie watching was a big influence. I have always loved Alfred Hitchcock movies and, over the past few years, have really gotten into Woody Allen flicks. Their elements of suspense and “film noir” style really can be seen throughout my play. 

I’m curious, Julie, what was your first impression of my play? Could you easily identify my inspiration? Did you think I was a completely twisted teenager for writing a play with a plot such as mine?

Julie: You know, I suspected your influences, Izzy. If you’ll remember, it was my first question about your work, and I was glad to hear I was on the right track. As your dramaturg, I then asked myself what could be done to enhance the noir elements while continuing to highlight what made your play theatre and not just a gussied up film script.  I really loved certain elements: the scraping of silverware on plates, the fantasy section, but let’s not give too much away. Twisted teen or not, I really liked that you tapped into ways to communicate your story in new ways. That’s impressive for any playwright!

You got a chance to see your first full rehearsal the other day. What was that like? What would you wish for any teen going through this process?

Izzy: It was a really weird experience seeing my play in action. I started casting the play in my head as soon as I saw the actors, but none of them really looked how I pictured their characters. I never really thought about it; since I didn’t describe any physical characteristics of my characters, people are bound to imagine them differently. It just threw me off when I saw who they cast, but they all play my characters so well. Even though they don’t physically look how I pictured them, they have the type of mannerisms and idiosyncrasies I envisioned. Not to sound cheesy but this is a really awesome experience. I’d hope anyone who gets to take part in this program or in a similar situation doesn’t take it for granted. My advice would be to keep an open mind; seeing how other people interpret your play is half the fun (and the battle).

Julie: Thanks, Izzy, both your honesty and advice would serve any budding playwright.  That’s it for this time around. I’d love to hear your thoughts when you’ve had chance to see the production with an audience.

Izzy’s play “Betrayal” will have its first live audience Wednesday morning (Sept. 30), and she and I will chat again after that. We’re both looking forward to that event and hope to see some of you there.

by Tracy Brigden

I have just begun rehearsals for Jeffrey Hatcher’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  It has been so exciting to prepare to direct this vivid adaptation of R.L. Stevenson’s most famous work.  In the last couple of months I have been immersing myself in the culture, life, mores, discoveries, and images of Victorian London.  There are some terrific books on the subject that cover everything from the medical profession to prostitution to the sewage system.  I have included a bibliography at the end of this entry.  I have also been looking at many of the painters of the period like Whistler, Turner, and Monet.  If you only think of Whistler as being the man who painted his mother—look at some of his paintings of London and the sky—they are totally different and gorgeous. 

We are going to use a Monet image, Waterloo Bridge,in the set designed by Tony Ferrieri. However, the way we have used it is a bit of a nod to the many facets of the brain that are the theme of the play.

Susan Tsu’s costumes are inspired by the real clothes of the late 19^th century.  But we have added a layer of the modern Goth look on the top of them—which is surprisingly close to Victorian style.  (Check back here for more on the Jekyll and Hyde designs in an upcoming article with Tracy and the designers.)

It’s difficult to imagine a world where the notion of the subconscious mind is completely new and vanguard, but the study of the mind was just beginning in this period.  RLS was inspired by some of the new theories on the subject to write his novella, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

To give some context for the times, ether had just been discovered and replaced brandy or opium as an anesthesia for surgery.  Hospitals for people other than the absolutely destitute were just being created.  If you had any means surgeons came to your home and performed exams, leeching, or surgery on your bed or dining table.  The notion that germs and bacteria might spread via touch or water or air was just being examined. 

The other aspect of life at the turn of the century is the vast difference in the lives, professions, health, and domiciles of the rich and poor.  The average person living in poverty lived to be only 25, while an average person with money lived at least 20 years longer.  Women in particular were deeply affected by their financial circumstances.  If you didn’t have a husband or any means or education, your choices were fairly limited to servant, factory girl, or prostitute.  Prostitution was rampant throughout London, and utilized by all the social classes.  A bit of education might get you a job as a nurse or in a shop—but the wages were still below poverty level in most cases.

It is against this vivid backdrop that Stevenson, and now Hatcher, have created this story of the good and evil in man.  I think it will make a very enthralling, and theatrical evening. 
Hope to see you at the theatre!

– Tracy Brigden, Artistic Director

Dore, Gustave and Blanchard Jerrold.  London a Pilgrimage.  New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1970.

Mitchell, Sally. Daily Life in Victorian England. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.

Nead, Lynda.  Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in 19^th century London.  New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005.

Picard, Liza.  Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840-1870.  New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005.

Porter, Roy. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

by Carlyn Aquiline

Actors at the first read-through for the Young Playwrights Festival.

In addition to heading into rehearsals this week for Jekyll and Hyde, we also started rehearsals last week for a new performance. Here’s a brief description:

Act One: A prehistoric village discovers fire and must learn to control the unchecked forces of both nature and human nature.

Act Two: A dark secret reveals a crack in the picturesque façade of an ideal marriage, propelling the seemingly perfect household toward a tragic end.

Act Three: Two teenage girls are woven in a web of mystery and intrigue related to the government’s work on top secret spy satellites.

Are you wondering how the playwright can possibly cover all that in a single play? Well, it’s actually three plays, presented in a single performance set—the descriptions above are of the high school division plays in this year’s Young Playwrights Festival, taking place September 29-October 4. (Click here for full schedule and play descriptions.) During the week, our school matinee audiences get a chance to talk to the artists after the show—I think the audience discussions with the playwrights have inspired many of their peers over the years to try a hand at writing a play—and to take an interactive tour at City Theatre to see how our production departments work their magic. The weekend is especially exciting, though, because there’s so much activity that the Festival atmosphere really kicks in. Besides the performances and post-show parties, any student in 7^th to 12^th is welcome to attend any of the free workshops we offer throughout the weekend. This year we’ll have workshops in playwriting, scenic design, prop building, costume design, and scenic painting—offering something for all those middle and high school aged students who probably have a place to try their hand at acting but are also interested in learning more about the technical side of theatre-making. (Click here for a schedule of the free workshops.)

Playwright John Marabello (far left) watches rehearsal as director Anya Martin (far right) directs his play "The Nerds of the Century" for the Young Playwrights Festival.

For those who don’t know, the Young Playwrights Festival selections are chosen from the plays that are submitted to us in our spring Young Playwrights Contest. All of the playwrights whose submissions are not selected for production still receive feedback from us, and we select three middle school and three high school plays to produce in the Festival. It’s always a lively selection discussion among the senior artistic staff and a difficult decision since the finalists always have great merit—we often wish we could produce many more than three of each division.

This year’s writers were notified in June that their plays had been selected and they have been readying their plays for production ever since—doing revisions over their summer vacations, some of them while on vacation. In any new play process, you can never anticipate everything and the questions that come out of the rehearsal hall from the director and actors often help to put the finishing touches on revisions for production. We allow for that in the Young Playwrights Festival, too. We’re about a week into rehearsal now, though, and the scripts are just about set—this year’s playwrights are just about to the point when they can sit back and really watch their works come to life onstage.

The YPF cast works on blocking for John Marabello's play "The Nerds of the Century."

No matter what else happened throughout the season, there used to be one day I always looked forward to—one of the most pleasurable days of the year for me was the day I used to be able to call six young playwrights to tell them that we loved their plays and were going to produce them for them. Now that pleasure belongs to Kristen Link, our Education Director—and though I might wistfully think of the days when I was the bearer of such great news, I would not take it back if it meant losing Kristen as a colleague and I happily hand over that pleasure to her.

While I’m thinking back for a moment, I should mention that this year is a milestone: the 2009-2010 season includes the 10^thAnnual Young Playwrights Festival. My first day of work at City Theatre was the launch of the program, and I only recently realized that we have produced 89 young playwrights between then and now. As City Theatre’s dramaturg, I’m sort of the umbrella for all of the dramaturgical work that happens for the Festival (I jokingly call myself the uber-dramaturg), so I have had an intimate view of the process for all of those 89 playwrights—a perspective that is unique to me. In some ways I feel like a walking repository of the history of Young Playwrights at City Theatre because I really do remember each of them vividly.

Check back in a few days for an entry from one of this year’s playwrights, Isabel D’Angelo from Washington High School—she wrote the “Act Two” play that begins this entry, a noir crime thriller—talking to her dramaturg, Julie Tosh, about their collaboration over the past few months and what made it so successful.

– Carlyn Aquiline, Literary Manager and Dramaturg