'The most shocking thing about Kip William's adaptation and production of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – are those fleeting moments when the actors address the audience directly, vividly dressed and viscerally present on the floorboards of our shared space. For most of the production the two actors, Ewen Leslie and Matthew Backer, are disembodied projections on multiple screens, part of an expressionistic black and white film that presents theatre as a hybrid medium, within the deep artifice of dozens of technicians’ filming the two actors.
In its attempt to build suspense, the narration of the production is utterly breathless. Large slabs of the novel are rendered as theatrical narrative. The Victorian gothic language is superbly articulated.
What is unforgivable in this production is the utter lack of synchronisation between spoken word and filmed acting. Some critics have suggested that this is a surrealistic devise to further alienate the audience and heighten the frisson of a gothic dream scape. That maybe be wishful thinking. What is does it defeat the intensity of the text, at times requiring an audience member to close their eyes and imbibe of a radio play ambience. That such technical difficulties were not overcome by our very well-funded premier theatre company speaks to a neglect of audience and comprehension.
Having so many cameras, so many technicians, so many close ups of actors and multiple projections of scenes is obviously fun, but in this faulty incarnation its effectiveness was reduced by the sibilance of misaligned words and fleeting lips. Ultimately, it tended to be anti-human. The audience sees parts of the actor’s body upstage as some high angle spot – viewed through a telescopic image - that is then patterned on the screens that hover above the stage. There is no focus on their stage presence.
Sometimes, the merging of actors and visualisation works brilliantly – never more so than in the gravitationally spatial representation of the long slow climb to Jekyll’s laboratory by Utterson and the servant. The various other design elements of the production were effectively given, particularly lighting (Nick Schlieper) and sound (Michael Toisuta)
The acting of Messrs Backer and Leslie is splendid. The modulated intensity of Utterson is expertly rendered by Backer. He crafts the character’s world view, filling it full of prim posterity and well-mannered friendships, charting the rising horror with dexterity.
Leslie undertakes multiple roles, gifting us a dazzling display of thespian dexterity. Leslie truly managed to make palpable Hyde’s “lusting to inflict pain”. In this production, the disintegration of Jekyll is carefully plotted. The discovery of the dissolution of his binary, the yin and yang that he has so carefully cultivated, erupts as anarchy and terror before our eyes.
Unfortunately, the long last section of the adaptation overstays its welcome. We know the outcome. This stretch is full of bellicose and baroque language that defeats the sense of breathless mystery so cultivated from the beginning – so that the demise of Jekyll is not particularly temping of pathos. Some judicious editing would have helped maintain tension.
Generally, Williams is keen on relentless pace and shafts of dazzling technology, as though silence and reflection would be a hindrance to audience perceptions. The production is not as frantic and self-obsessed as his Julius Caesar and not as technically startling as his Dorian Gray, but it does take us deep into Stevenson’s stark portrayal of desire’s dissolution. When it flips into comic absurdity, in its Offenbachian representation of the dark sexual underbelly of Victorian double dealing with regards gentlemen and male to male sexuality, the brightly coloured feather boas and disco lights become faintly ludicrous and undercut the gothic and expressionistic feel so excessively engendered in the artefacts of the production’s filming.
Technology is an important component of theatre – the suspension of disbelief is its outcome, but the fractured world that is imported into these productions by Mr Williams – sometimes defeats our engagement with the characters. The tension between watching the actor on the stage and watching their persona as the large than life filmed character – not only ricks the neck but make film the primary artefact of engagement. In many ways, Mr Williams should take a break from theatre and produce his own films.
Sydney Theatre Company, Ros Packer Theatre, Sydney, August 16, 2022
Gar Jones
In its attempt to build suspense, the narration of the production is utterly breathless. Large slabs of the novel are rendered as theatrical narrative. The Victorian gothic language is superbly articulated.
What is unforgivable in this production is the utter lack of synchronisation between spoken word and filmed acting. Some critics have suggested that this is a surrealistic devise to further alienate the audience and heighten the frisson of a gothic dream scape. That maybe be wishful thinking. What is does it defeat the intensity of the text, at times requiring an audience member to close their eyes and imbibe of a radio play ambience. That such technical difficulties were not overcome by our very well-funded premier theatre company speaks to a neglect of audience and comprehension.
Having so many cameras, so many technicians, so many close ups of actors and multiple projections of scenes is obviously fun, but in this faulty incarnation its effectiveness was reduced by the sibilance of misaligned words and fleeting lips. Ultimately, it tended to be anti-human. The audience sees parts of the actor’s body upstage as some high angle spot – viewed through a telescopic image - that is then patterned on the screens that hover above the stage. There is no focus on their stage presence.
Sometimes, the merging of actors and visualisation works brilliantly – never more so than in the gravitationally spatial representation of the long slow climb to Jekyll’s laboratory by Utterson and the servant. The various other design elements of the production were effectively given, particularly lighting (Nick Schlieper) and sound (Michael Toisuta)
The acting of Messrs Backer and Leslie is splendid. The modulated intensity of Utterson is expertly rendered by Backer. He crafts the character’s world view, filling it full of prim posterity and well-mannered friendships, charting the rising horror with dexterity.
Leslie undertakes multiple roles, gifting us a dazzling display of thespian dexterity. Leslie truly managed to make palpable Hyde’s “lusting to inflict pain”. In this production, the disintegration of Jekyll is carefully plotted. The discovery of the dissolution of his binary, the yin and yang that he has so carefully cultivated, erupts as anarchy and terror before our eyes.
Unfortunately, the long last section of the adaptation overstays its welcome. We know the outcome. This stretch is full of bellicose and baroque language that defeats the sense of breathless mystery so cultivated from the beginning – so that the demise of Jekyll is not particularly temping of pathos. Some judicious editing would have helped maintain tension.
Generally, Williams is keen on relentless pace and shafts of dazzling technology, as though silence and reflection would be a hindrance to audience perceptions. The production is not as frantic and self-obsessed as his Julius Caesar and not as technically startling as his Dorian Gray, but it does take us deep into Stevenson’s stark portrayal of desire’s dissolution. When it flips into comic absurdity, in its Offenbachian representation of the dark sexual underbelly of Victorian double dealing with regards gentlemen and male to male sexuality, the brightly coloured feather boas and disco lights become faintly ludicrous and undercut the gothic and expressionistic feel so excessively engendered in the artefacts of the production’s filming.
Technology is an important component of theatre – the suspension of disbelief is its outcome, but the fractured world that is imported into these productions by Mr Williams – sometimes defeats our engagement with the characters. The tension between watching the actor on the stage and watching their persona as the large than life filmed character – not only ricks the neck but make film the primary artefact of engagement. In many ways, Mr Williams should take a break from theatre and produce his own films.
Sydney Theatre Company, Ros Packer Theatre, Sydney, August 16, 2022
Gar Jones