Jekyll & Hyde E-Book

Evan Placey

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: NHB Modern Plays
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 98

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Everyone has another face they hide behind… A radical re-imagining by playwright Evan Placey of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale, where civilised society meets seedy Soho in a thrilling collision of Victorian England with the here and now. Written for the National Youth Theatre, and first performed by the company at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End in 2017, Jekyll & Hyde offers a full range of parts for schools and youth-theatre groups looking for a contemporary reinvention of a macabre classic. Evan Placey's other plays include Consensual, Pronoun, Girls Like That (Best Play for Young Audiences at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards), Mother of Him, Banana Boys and Holloway Jones.

Leseprobe

Evan Placey

JEKYLL & HYDE

after

R.L. Stevenson

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Original Production

Dedication

Characters

Production Note

A Note on Punctuation

Chapter Headings

Jekyll & Hyde

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

IntroductionEvan Placey

Taking on a classic story that everyone knows is always going to be a daunting task. I was conscious, when working on my version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, that it was a process of reimagination, rather than simply adaptation. Not only was I writing for a new genre, but I was writing for a new generation. I wanted to preserve the heart of the novel whilst making a new work that would stand in its own right, and so it made sense to me for my play also to explore some elements of the story that Stevenson’s novel had not.

Revisiting the book I was struck by the invisibility of women. Aside from two fleeting characters in two fleeting moments, they don’t exist. They’re not allowed to be part of the story. And so I started to imagine what the stories were for the unseen women in the book and what the narrative would be like if a woman were to take the reins.

The repression of the female characters from the novel slowly became the main thing I wanted to explore in my adaptation – especially the idea that if society represses specific groups, they have to go to extremes to liberate themselves. My version came to be centred on a very different protagonist – Hattie, Jekyll’s bereaved widow – as well as the plight of women in Victorian times, and how the challenges that faced women then are still just as prevalent now.

I was first drawn to Jekyll and Hyde because I felt it had utter relevance to today, that it still spoke to contemporary society about the repressed desires we all have. I was also fascinated by the fact that today the science to unleash our own inner Hydes very much exists: the internet.

Dr Jekyll’s potion is now accessible to us all, through our online personas. Any of us can hide behind a screen and say or do as we like, exploring sides of ourselves we might not otherwise dare. I had questions about personal responsibility that I wanted to ask myself – and the audience: when is doing or saying as we like a positive act of freedom and maybe revolution, and when is it dangerous? Who decides what desires are acceptable? How culpable can our words be on our own – or others’ – subsequent actions?

Throughout the process of adapting the novel, I also kept asking myself why we keep returning to the classics. What do they tell us about our world today? And this very question has become part of the form of the storytelling in my adaptation, as Florence takes the story of Jekyll and Hyde and reappropriates it for herself.

I normally plan a lot before I write – having a clear sense of the story, the shape, the form before I even write a word of script. But this one was different – it sort of evolved. I started writing thinking the whole play would be ‘Victorian’ and then I started consciously slipping anachronisms in – I didn’t yet know if they’d stay or why they’d be there, but I enjoyed the theatricality of them. And then I kept pushing them. I saw pop-up ads seeping through, and text-speak. And I realised I wanted not only to use the Victorian world to comment on today’s world, but actually go to today’s world.

There were lots of passages and pieces of language from the novel that I really liked, and some of them made their way into early drafts of the play. Gradually, however, most of them felt unnecessary or overly poetic, so if they didn’t sound like they would come from a character’s mouth, they got cut. I really enjoyed the confession at the end of the novel, so I have my own version in the final scene of the play, and I loved the reveal to Lanyon, someone who didn’t believe in the science, so I’ve made my own version of that scene too. Most importantly though, I wanted to create a stage play which works within and of itself, not just as an addition to the novel.

Playing Style

I think the deliberately anachronistic moments work, for the most part, if you just drive through them. Don’t heighten them – they’ll do the work themselves. From the first – when Jekyll mentions the Gestapo, and Utterson queries it – just let it be the weird moment the characters feel it is, a short jolt, and then move on. Same goes for Josephine’s ‘glitch’. And play the truth of the text-speak. For example, when Gertrude says, ‘x x colon dash star’, she should play the meaning of that which is ‘kiss kiss kissy-face-emoticon’, rather than being robotic or odd about it. Let the audience do the work of ‘What was that?’, without the actors needing to point it out. Then, as the play goes on and these moments become longer in how they cut through, let them become bigger – by the time we get to the priest’s sermon, there’s no escaping or hiding that something is going on here as pop-up ads infuse his speech. The contemporary world is definitely seeping into the Victorian world from here on out, and so perhaps these anachronisms are heightened with light or sound.

Once you reach the end of Act One – when we fully go into the contemporary world, the lines between the two worlds can be blurred. They feed each other. In the original National Youth Theatre production, directed by Roy Alexander Weise, the second act began in the police station and the police station never left the stage; rather the Victorian world would almost invade the station space/share the space. In whatever way you choose to realise it in your production, I think the text is inviting a different style to the storytelling in Act Two.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the National Youth Theatre and Paul Roseby; the NYT Rep company; Roy Alexander Weise; Tanya Tillett; Matt Applewhite, Jodi Gray and everyone at Nick Hern Books.

And, as always, thank you to Daniel and the Boy.

Finally, thank you to Robert Louis Stevenson: I’m sorry.

Jekyll & Hyde was commissioned by Paul Roseby, CEO and Artistic Director of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, and first performed by the company at the Ambassadors Theatre, London, on 27 September 2017, with the following cast:

HARRIET JEKYLL/FLOSSIE HYDE

Elizabeth McCafferty

GABRIEL JOHN UTTERSON

Marc Benga

FLORENCE MONROE

Jenny Walser

DOCTOR LANYON/ENSEMBLE

Scott Oswald

ABBIE/LUCY/ENSEMBLE

Rosella Doda

MARTHA/MILLIE/JOSEPHINE/ENSEMBLE

Leah Gaffey

DC WILLIAMS/ENSEMBLE

Joanna McGibbon

DCI RENFORD/SCIENTIST/ENSEMBLE

Douglas Wood

GERTRUDE/GEORGIE ENSEMBLE

Amarah Jae St. Aubyn

IDA/IZZY/ENSEMBLE

Rebecca Hesketh-Smith

TOMMY/JOHNNY/SCIENTIST/ENSEMBLE

Curtis John Kemlo

JUDGE RICHARD ENFIELD/ENSEMBLE

Leo Shirley

SALLY/ENSEMBLE

Megan Burke

OFFICER ROSE/SCIENTIST ENSEMBLE

Eddie-Joe Robinson

BILL/OFFICER RAY/SCIENTIST/ENSEMBLE

Jamie Rose

PRIEST/PAPERBOY/SCIENTIST/ENSEMBLE

Mohammed Mansaray

Director

Roy Alexander Weise

Set Designer

Laura Hopkins

Co-Costume Designers

Loren Elstein & Jen Gregory

Lighting Designer

Amy Mae

Sound Designer

Harry Linden Johnson

Composer

Odinn Orn Hilmarsson

Lighting Consultant

Andy Purves

Sound Consultant

Helen Atkinson

Bryan Forbes Assistant Director

Thomas Bailey

Movement Director

Deborah Galloway

Fight Director

Bret Yount

NYT is very pleased to thank the Pureland Foundation who support our commitment to exceptional new writing for young people

For my English and Drama teachers atClaude Watson and Earl Haig Secondary School,for giving me my love of words and writing

and

For all the English and Drama teachers

Charactersin order of appearance

SALLY

HARRIET (HATTIE) JEKYLL/FLOSSIE HYDE

OFFICER ROSE

GABRIEL JOHN UTTERSON

FLORENCE, referred to as YOUNG WOMAN in Act One

ABBIE

GERTRUDE/GEORGIE, these roles should be doubled

IDA/IZZY, these roles should be doubled

MARTHA/MILLIE, these roles should be doubled

JOSEPHINE

DR MAXWELL

DR FINN

DR LANYON

DR TENNISON

LUCY

JUDGE RICHARD ENFIELD

TOMMY

PRIEST

DCI RENFORD

DC WILLIAMS

PAPERBOY

OFFICER RAY

JOHNNY

PROTESTORS, DENIZENS OF SOHO, MEMBERS OF A CHURCH CHOIR and CONGREGATIONS

Production Note

For the most part, scenes should rush into each other. If possible the set should reflect the doubling that happens in the play, so that things turn/shift/transform into other things.

There should be lots of mirrors integrated into the set.

It’s also fine if things have a bit of a contemporary edge to the them – like a pastiche of Victorian society, or maybe become more contemporary as the piece goes on.

This is not ‘real’ Victorian society. Things don’t have to be exact, historically accurate – reasons for which will become clear in the story. It’s more important that they capture an essence or an idea of the time.

All historical inaccuracies (and there are several) can be blamed on me.

I’m imagining much of the piece is scored to bring in the gothic and heightened feel to it.

Other characters than those indicated on the page opposite can also be doubled, and many likely will, but it’s more that there’s particular resonance with the specific doubling already indicated.

It feels important that Florence/Young Woman does not double as anyone.

A Note on Punctuation

– is a cut-off, sometimes of one’s own thought with a different thought (not a pause or beat).

… is a loss or search for words.

A lack of punctuation at the end of a line means the next line comes right in.

[ ] indicates words that are not spoken, but there to clarify a line’s meaning.

Sometimes sentences are broken across multiple lines of text; this is to help break up a chunk of text and give it a rhythm, but it’s not about stopping or pausing between lines, especially when there’s no punctuation at the end of a line – the rule above still applies, the next line comes right in. The spacing is to help push the pace and drive the shift in intentions within a hefty bit of dialogue.

Chapter Headings

These should appear on stage somewhere when listed in the script. In the first production they were projected by Florence, which worked well. Feel free to also place Florence in the background of other scenes in Act One as you feel necessary.

ACT ONE

Scene One

A theatre.

Loud growling in the dark.

Noisy spotlight lights up a cage. The growling continues.We catch a glimpse of a tiger’s paw.Light out.

Spotlight lights up another cage.A glimpse of a tiger’s tail.Light out.

Light up on another cage.A glimpse of a tiger’s back legs.Light out.

Light up on SALLY. She wears tiger print. And holds a whip.

SALLY. Grrrrr.

Ladies, gentleman, good evening.

Now I know you have not come here to see me. It’s my boys behind me that you want.

But first a little story.

From my youth.

My mother would tell me I was a troublesome child.

Wild.

I’d come inside with tears in my tights, and mud on my shoes, ants in my pants and a bee in my bonnet.

Literally.

Mother was at a loss.

Can’t you ever sit still, child? This is not how a girl ought to behave. It’s a like a three-ring circus whenever you’re about. Why don’t you go play with your dolls like a good little girl?

I felt alone. I felt misunderstood. I felt… caged.

Father got a job in Africa. How exciting, I thought.

But Mother kept me on an even closer leash.