Derby Theatre (Jekyll and Hyde Teachers' Pack)

EDUCATION

Neil Bartlett

Louis Stevenson.

Sarah Brigham

Neil Bartlett

by

Louis Stevenson.

Sarah Brigham

About this pack

Resource pack by Carolyn Bradley

If you have any questions about this resource pack or how to use it, please contact Caroline Barth at c.barth@derby.ac.uk

This pack is designed for teachers, GCSE Drama students and GCSE English students who may be watching Jekyll and Hyde in preparation for the live theatre section of the GCSE Drama written exam, or the English Literature exam. This is the pre-show pack and is designed to be used before watching the production. This pack will help students understand the context of the story and will give them an opportunity to learn about the themes, synopsis, characters, and the key production details such as the cast and creatives.

There are suggested activities and prompt questions to help engage students in the production, and also a pre-show workshop so the students can explore the play practically.

Following the opening of the production, the post-show part of the Jekyll and Hyde Education Pack will be released, which is designed to support students’ learning after they have seen

the production, and will focus on key moments from the play, design elements, preparing for the GCSE Drama live theatre questions, and tasks for English students exploring the play.

We are not responsible for the content of external links, and we strongly recommend checking the suitability of external content before sharing with your students.

There are key differences between the novel and this adaptation, which are covered in the synopsis. The synopsis is of the stage adaptation and not the novel. It may be worth reminding GCSE English students of these differences before they watch the production.

About the playwright

Neil Bartlett was born in 1958. He grew up in Chichester, West Sussex, and now lives in London with his partner of thirty-two years, author and archivist James Gardiner.

He has been making rule-breaking theatre and performance since 1983. After a controversial early career he was appointed Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith in London in 1994. Since leaving the Lyric in 2005, major cultural producers he has worked for include the National Theatre, the Abbey in Dublin, Bristol Old Vic, Manchester Royal Exchange, Edinburgh International Festival, Manchester International Festival, Brighton, Aldeburgh and Holland Festivals, the Wellcome Foundation and Tate Britain.

Neil is also an acclaimed author, with a whole shelf of novels, plays, adaptations and translations to his name. His most recent novel, Address Book, was published by Inkandescent in 2021 – and his very first novel, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall (1990), has just been republished by Profile as a Serpents Tail Classic.

You can find out more about Neil’s work here: www.neil-bartlett.com

About the author

Robert Louis Stevenson was a famous Victorian author, born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1850. He mainly wrote mystery and adventure stories, and his books are still read and enjoyed today.

His family were religious and he was brought up as a Calvanist, though he started to reject his faith and pursued a more bohemian lifestyle as an adult.

As a child Robert Louis Stevenson was sickly and frequently ill. He was described as being thin and frail, and he suffered with coughs and fevers.

Treasure Island was first published as a book in 1883. It was very successful and turned Robert Louis Stevenson into a well-known writer.

Robert Louis Stevenson continued to experience health problems as an adult. He suffered with chest infections and was often so ill he couldn’t leave his bed. He frequently travelled for his health, and settled in Bournemouth for while.

In 1886 he wrote both The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped. Much of the writing was done from his sickbed. Some scholars believe he would have been taking strong medication, such as morphine, when he wrote these works. It is thought that the story of Deacon Brodie, a Scottish cabinet maker with a double life, was partly the inspiration for Jekyll & Hyde.

In December 1894, Robert Louis Stevenson died at the age of 44 years old.

Synopsis

The play opens with Dr Stevenson, a young female doctor, being sworn into the medical profession by an all-male board. She is the first female appointed to the hospital. She addresses the audience and introduces one of her first cases, where she had to deal with the brutal assault of a young girl. We then shift to late December, 3am, on a Victorian hospital ward. A girl has been brought in with a bleeding nose and bruises, and is attended by the Matron. Dr Stevenson attends to her and the girl claims to have been attacked.

A witness steps forward, Mr Enfield, who says he saw the attack, and Mr Utterson, another Gentleman arrives at the hospital in support of Mr Enfield. The attack is reconstructed by the Chorus of Gentleman, and we learn that the girl was knocked down and then trampled on by a mysterious, small, odd man – Mr Edward Hyde. To avoid a scandal, the gentlemen forced Hyde to pay £100 to the girl’s mother. Hyde went inside a door, and returned with a signed cheque. Enfield reveals secretly to Utterson that the cheque was signed by Dr Jekyll, “somebody rather celebrated. A proper top-end do-gooder” making the story even more mysterious. Utterson seems visibly troubled by this news. Utterson then confirms to everyone present that the signature on the cheque would have been Jekyll’s, and that he

knows the name Edward Hyde as his friend Dr Jekyll had recently asked Utterson to amend his will, leaving his entire estate to his “friend Mr Edward Hyde”. Utterson also confirms that the door Hyde went into (and had a key for) is the back door of Dr Jekyll’s house. Stevenson warns Utterson that his friend Jekyll is exposing himself to “the slow cancer of disgrace” by associating with someone like Hyde.

Weeks later, Utterson comes by the hospital in a state of distress, telling Dr Stevenson he is haunted by the memory of the girl being trampled. He recounts a night where he visited Hyde. Through a reconstruction we see Utterson confront Hyde at the back door, who sneers and dismisses him, telling him

Dr Jekyll is not at home. Utterson then goes round to the front door of Jekyll’s house. He meets with Mrs Poole, the housekeeper, who confirms that Hyde has a key and is a friend of Jekyll’s, who they all have orders to obey.

Utterson recounts a further scene, a fortnight later at Jekyll’s house. We see a scene of the Gentlemen (including Jekyll and Utterson) having a dinner party, and Jekyll is discussing the “multitudes” of elements that a single man can contain. After the other guests have left, Utterson stays and entreats Jekyll to change his will, saying he can get him out of

whatever position he is in with Hyde. Jekyll asks him to drop the matter, and confirms he doesn’t want Hyde to be out of pocket should he be “taken unexpectedly away”.

Back in the hospital, Dr Stevenson questions why Utterson did nothing about this, but is put in her place by the Chorus of Gentlemen, who remind her how well to do, upright and handsome Jekyll was, so no one questioned him further, until …

Nearly a year later, October 14th, the Gentlemen report that Sir Danvers Carew was murdered. Mrs Poole describes the events, saying Carew was attacked with a gentleman’s cane and then trampled on by a small man matching Hyde’s description. On the body was a stamped and sealed envelope. The scene shifts to a mortuary, where Dr Stevenson is doing an autopsy on Carew, with Utterson there to identify the body. The Police Inspector at the scene shows Utterson a part of the broken cane, which Utterson recognises as belonging to Dr Jekyll. Utterson tells the Inspector the man they want is Mr Hyde, and the Doctor, Inspector and Utterson make their way to Soho to find Hyde. At Hyde’s lodging they find the other half of the cane – confirming him as the murderer. The group then goes to Jekyll’s house, where they find Jekyll looking tired and dishevelled.

Jekyll assures Utterson he will not hear any more from Hyde, telling them Hyde has left. Jekyll produces a letter supposedly from Hyde, which thanks Jekyll for his financial assistance and says he has found a means of escape. Utterson consults a handwriting expert, Mr Guest, who confirms that the handwriting is Jekyll’s leading Utterson to conclude that Jekyll had forged an alibi for Hyde. However, the matter is dropped, as Jekyll seems to have returned to his former self, being seen again at the Royal Society and Charity events.

There are rumours that Jekyll has asked Poole to keep the door shut and refuse visitors, and so Utterson goes to see his friend Lanyon for advice. Lanyon has visibly aged and is unwell, and refuses to discuss Jekyll, saying he will not hear Jekyll’s name mentioned in his house. He gives Utterson a sealed package, telling him to read it when he is gone, and when Hyde has gone too.

Utterson receives a letter from Jekyll, stating that he is the “chief of sinners … the chief of sufferers also” and asking Utterson to respect his “silence”. Utterson and Dr Stevenson go to Jekyll’s house, where Mrs Poole tells them something very wrong is happening up in Jekyll’s laboratory. Poole and the servants say they haven’t seen Jekyll for over a week but can hear footsteps which aren’t his. Poole tells them that Jekyll is sending notes asking for various chemicals to be bought from chemists for him.

The notes are in Jekyll’s handwriting, but Poole fears that Jekyll has been killed and another

creature is up there. Utterson goes up to the laboratory and shouts for Jekyll, and out comes Mr Hyde. Hyde is laughing and shaking, and then begins to convulse and dies in front of them.

The Doctor notices a small bottle of cyanide which falls from his hand. Doctor Stevenson is bewildered, wondering where Dr Jekyll is. Utterson hands her a pile of sealed documents which were on Jekyll’s desk, addressed to him. He tells her that if she wants to know what happened to Jekyll, to read the papers.

Matron, the Girl, and Doctor Stevenson are in the mortuary, with Hyde’s body under a sheet, reading through all of Jekyll’s papers and trying to piece together what happened. The Girl wants to know why it happened, which no-one can answer. The body under the table then moves, and sits up – it isn’t Hyde, but Dr Jekyll. He proceeds to tell his story. He explains that as a young doctor he spent his days healing the sick, but had more shameful urges at night, so he developed a split personality. He began to wonder if he could become “truly split” or “disassociated” – if the “sordid or violent part of me – for instance – might walk his downward path delivered from all remorse, while his more upright twin might carry on doing all the good things … ” He tells the Doctor that he began to experiment with concoctions to make this happen, to “free the twins” and it was successful. He explains that when he became Hyde, he looked in the mirror and saw himself – “my other, single, natural self. Pure … evil”. He then took the potion again and became Jekyll once more.

Jekyll (with a hint of Hyde) explains that he felt no remorse for attacking the Girl, she was simply in the way and it was an accident. He goes on to explain how it became harder and harder to change back into Jekyll, and he had to triple the dose, or he would have to “choose between being respected or reviled”. The murder of Sir Danvers Carew is also recounted, with Jekyll and the Chorus of Gentleman taking pleasure in this scene.

Jekyll then recounts how he wrote to Dr Lanyon, imploring him to bring him more supplies, but then when he met him, it was as Hyde. Dr Lanyon then witnessed Hyde take the potion and transform back into Jekyll which made him ill with the shock. Lanyon promised to take Jekyll’s secret to his grave.

Jekyll then tells Doctor Stevenson how he tried to banish Hyde, and live as Jekyll, but the transformations started to happen during the day, out in public. He locked himself in his house, took his potion repeatedly, but soon it ran out. He explains to Dr Stevenson how he equipped himself with cyanide, because the “animal was boiling with hate” inside him. He describes the release and freedom of his death, and he dies. The scene returns to the dead body being on the mortuary table again. The Matron, Girl and Dr Stevenson clean up the space.

Characters

Doctor Stevenson

A newly qualified Doctor, admitted in 1886 to a previously all male profession. She is young, tough, and outspoken, but also inexperienced. She recounts her story of the case of Dr Jekyll. Dr Stevenson was based on a real female doctor from the time.

A Girl

The first victim of Mr Hyde, who he attacks in the street. She is a teenage sex worker. She becomes part of the narrative and along with Doctor Stevenson and the Matron, frames the story as it is being told.

Matron

Works in the hospital where Doctor Stevenson has just started, but is much more experienced. She is stern, efficient and robust.

Mrs Poole

Dr Jekyll’s housekeeper, she recounts some of the vital events in the story.

The Chorus of Gentlemen

The chorus represent the patriarchy, the male power in the play, and they sit in the tiered seating of the Victorian lecture theatre, literally looking down on Doctor Stevenson. They are the ensemble of the play, telling the story at key moments and reconstructing events, commenting as it develops. They each have a “Hyde” side themselves.

Dr Jekyll

A Doctor in his prime, aged 35-40. Goodlooking, very wealthy, respected, with the smooth air of upper-class superiority. His house contains a private laboratory, he is a radical, experimenting with new theories. He is a highly skilled liar. Dr Lanyon says he always had a “slyish cast about the face”.

Whilst he is a well to do Doctor by day, at night he has shameful urges, which is why he initially seeks to create a potion to split his personality, meaning his evil, dark side could be let out, and he would have no knowledge of it.

Throughout the story he loses control of Mr Hyde who takes over, and cannot be controlled by the potion Dr Jekyll has invented. Dr Jekyll kills himself with cyanide to stop Mr Hyde from consuming him.

Mr Hyde

Dr Jekyll’s alter-ego. Indefinably odd. Described as small, neat, deformed somehow, wrong, disgusting, but it’s always vague – “it was rather as if he didn’t have a face”. His voice is cold, icy, chilling.

Mr Enfield

A “pompous middle aged man” – who is the first witness to Hyde’s actions. He sees the girl being attacked and comes forward, though is protective of Jekyll and doesn’t want to confess that it was his name on the cheque.

Mr Utterson

A well-connected, authoritative lawyer, who went to school with Jekyll and is now his solicitor. He seems to be an upright image of propriety, but he lies and withholds information from the Police, and prevaricates when it comes to Jekyll, refusing to believe anything bad about his friend.

Dr Hastie Lanyon

An older Doctor and friend of Jekyll’s. He witnesses the terrible transformation from Hyde to Jekyll and dies from the shock.

Inspector Newcome

A Scotland Yard detective, investigating the murder of Sir Danvers Carew.

Mr Guest

A clerk in Dr Utterson’s legal chambers who also has expertise in graphology – analysing handwriting. He looks at the note from Mr Hyde and confirms that it is Dr Jekyll’s writing.

Cast

CHARLIE BUCKLAND Dr Lanyon

Charlie trained at UCW and E15.

Theatre highlights include: St Pancras North in the double Oliviernominated play, This House (National Theatre/Garrick Theatre, London); Oscar Wilde in In Extremis written by Neil Bartlett (King’s Head London/UK tour) and Mr Johnson in Mr Selfridge (ITV).

Recent work includes: Keir Hardie in Emmeline (Cockpit Theatre, London); The Husband in the award-winning short film, Lonely in Lockdown: Couples Therapy and Leonard Miall in the Alan Whicker radio biog-drama, The Other Side of the World (BBC R4).

Charlie was last at Derby with Horrible Histories.

HILARY GREATOREX

Matron/Mrs Poole

Hilary is from Darley Abbey and lived in Derby until training at East 15 Drama School. She’s worked in repertory theatre across the UK, including Once a Catholic, The Merchant of Venice, Alice in Wonderland and Treasure Island for the Swan Theatre, Worcester, Charlie’s Aunt, The Lakers and A Christmas Carol for the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick and Wakey Wakey! In Bed with Billy Cotton for the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. She toured in Blue Remembered Hills for Millstream Theatre Company.

Recently, she performed in The Last Woodwose and First the Dance, then the Feast in the woods and outdoor theatres of Suffolk for Wonderful Beast. She’s a regular performer at Ink, a festival for new writing.

TV credits include: Friday Night Dinner, Eastenders, Family Affairs, Casualty, Doctors, Waterloo Road, Whistleblower and Coronation Street.

Hilary is also a storyteller and workshop leader. Her one-woman shows for young people include, The Old Woman Who lived in a Vinegar Bottle, Leather & Liquorice, and Pantastic! A Tale of Twisted Knickers. She works regularly with Scene and Heard, a children’s mentoring charity in London.

TIFE KUSORO

The Girl, Tilly

Tife is an actor and writer. She trained on the National Youth Theatre’s 2020-21 Rep company and on Talawa Theatre Company’s young people’s programme.

Theatre credits include: Animal Farm (National Youth Theatre).

Jekyll and Hyde is Tife’s professional acting debut.

POLLY LISTER

Dr Stevenson

Polly trained at Manchester Met. Uni Theatre School and The National Youth Theatre.

She last worked with Derby Theatre on Great Expectations playing Miss Havisham and also appeared in Solace of The Road and Cooking with Elvis. She is delighted to be back and to be collaborating with The Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.

Theatre credits include: One Man Two Guvnors, Hound Of The Baskervilles (Bolton Octagon); Abigail’s Party (UK Theatre Award Winner - Best Performer); Fallen Angels, Memory Of Water, The Blue Room, Hayfever, Our Country’s Good, Private Lives (plus many more in Rep. at Theatre By The Lake, Keswick); Beauty And The Beast, Playhouse Creatures, Votes For Women, Table, 101 Dalmatians, The Snow Queen, The Borrowers, As You Like It (New Vic, Stoke); Blue Stockings (Storyhouse, Chester); The Wizard Of Oz (Leeds Playhouse); Worst Witch Live - (Olivier Award Winner for Best Family Show - Theatre Royal Northampton/ UK Tour/ West End); The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Di and Viv and Rose, The Snow Queen (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough); A Christmas Carol (Hull Truck); Much Ado About Nothing (Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds/ Mercury, Colchester); To Sir With Love (Birmingham Rep) and Saint Joan (National Theatre)

Film credits include: The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, RTFM, Polterheist, London-Unplugged.

Presenting credits include: Fite TV: Wrestling Showdown

Writing credits include: I Was A Wife Radio credits include: The Archers, Ladies’ Delight, Aromatherapy, Tree Splitting, Distance Between, Lulu, Something Blue (all for BBC Radio)

JAMES MORRELL

The Inspector

James graduated from ALRA South in 2020 and starred in Spring Awakening, Nell Gwynn, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, Twelfth Night; Or What You Will. James has amassed over a quarter of a million followers on Tiktok, taking the internet by storm.

CRAIG PAINTING

Mr Enfield

Theatre credits include: Holes (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds); Oliver Twist (Leeds Playhouse); Soonchild (Red Earth, UK tour); The Massacre and ’Til We Meet In England (Lost Text/Found Space); Egg (Cahoots Theatre Company, NI tour); The Jungle Book and The Firework-Maker’s Daughter (Birmingham Stage Company, UK tour).

TV credits include: Of Tea & Love; D.I. Ray; Doctors.

Film credits include: Just Charlie; The Mandrake Root.

Craig also delivers drama workshops to young people and is a keen user of British Sign Language, both professionally as a trainee interpreter and socially.

LEVI PAYNE

Mr Guest

Levi Payne is an actor based and born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. He trained at the University of Central Lancashire (20102013) and was a member of the regional young actors ensemble with Hull truck Theatre (2017-2018). Since then, he has done a range of Theatre and TV work throughout the UK. Levi also works as a youth Theatre Practitioner/Assistant at Cast, Doncaster.

Theatre credits include: Teechers Leavers 22 (Hull Truck); Love Hurts (New Vic Theatre); Mother Courage (Red Ladder); When We Were Brothers (Freedom Studios); Hidden Histories Tour (Mind the Gap); Hench (M6 Theatre); Of Mice and Men (Cast, Doncaster).

TV/Film credits include: Brassic, Coronation Street, Pond Life (Open Palm Films); Separation (Urban Conceptz) and New Mars.

NICHOLAS SHAW Jekyll and Hyde

Nicholas trained at Drama Centre in London.

Theatre credits include: Beauty and the Beast (New Vic Theatre); My White Best Friend - North (Eclipse Theatre); Brassed Off (New Vic Theatre); Wonderland (Nottingham Playhouse); Nell Gwynn (Shakespeare’s Globe/Nimax); Wolf Hall Parts 1 & 2 (RSC @ Winter Garden Theatre, NYC); Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies (RSC/Playful); Rutherford & Son (Northern Broadsides); Lighthearted Intercourse (Bolton Octagon); Hamlet (Northern Broadsides/New Vic Theatre); The Giant Killers (Long Lane Theatre Company); A Provincial Life (National Theatre Wales); Phaedra’s Love (Arcola Theatre); Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Liverpool Everyman); Anthology, Pandemic (Slung Low); The Fairy Queen (Opera Comique/Theatre De Caen/Brooklyn Academy of Music); The Merchant of Venice, Holding Fire! (Shakespeare’s Globe); Easter (Oxford Stage Company).

TV credits include: Bridgerton, Endeavour, Young Wallander, The Rotter’s Club, Land Girls, Foyle’s War; Afterlife; All About Me, Holby City, Emmerdale, Goldplated, Heartbeat, Doctors and Dalziel and Pascoe.

Radio credits include: Words and Sounds (BBC Radio 3).

Film credits include: Munich: The Edge of War, Napoleon.

Mr Utterson

Robert trained at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Theatre credits include: Marlowe’s Fate (White Bear); Great Expectations (Rotherhithe Playhouse); The Rivals, Dial M for Murder, The Vertical Hour (Theatre by the Lake); A Doll’s House, Beauty and the Beast (Sherman, Cardiff); Solace of the Road (Derby Theatre); Beauty and the Beast (Riverfront Theatre Newport); Wuthering Heights (Welsh Tour); The Life and Death of Julius Ceasar (Leptis Magna, Libya); Othello (RSC); Tamburlaine (Bristol Old Vic/Barbican); Cooking With Elvis (Edinburgh) and Ecstasy (Elan Wales).

TV credits include: Father Brown, Casualty.

Film credits include: Censor, The Village in the Woods.

Voice-over credits include: Final Fantasy, Assassins Creed, Battlefield, Cyberpunk and A Plague Tale.

ROBERT VERNON

Creatives

Neil Bartlett

Sarah Brigham

Jessica Curtis

Ivan Stott

Adaptor

Director

Designer

                                  Composer

Deb Pugh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Movement Director

Simeon Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Adam Jefferys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lighting Designer

Associate Lighting Designer

Anita Gilbert                                              Voice Coach

Philip Bond of PMB Theatre                              

Magic Consultant & Exhibition Services Ltd

Omar Khan                                         Assistant Director

Kay Magson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Casting Director

Grant Archer . .

Moby Renshaw .

Clelia Crawford

Anthony Fearnley

.

Lauren Harvey-Dempster

Rehearsal and Production Photography

Stage

Stage

Rehearsal Images

Themes

Duality

Duality means having two sides, and it is the duality of human nature that is explored in Jekyll and Hyde. The idea central to the story is that all people have good and evil inside them and are capable of both, but have a choice over how they behave. The novel shocks the reader by presenting Jekyll and Hyde as two separate people, and then revealing that they are the same person, showing us the duality of Henry Jekyll’s nature. Jekyll admits that whilst he is a good man and a well-meaning Doctor during the day, someone who heals the sick, in his youth he had shameful urges and “sordid pleasures”. He describes almost being trapped by his aspirations to become a Doctor, that he could not give in to these desires, to the point where he had to develop a double life. He tells Doctor Stevenson at the end of the play, that he was “equally” himself in both parts. But he had desires to separate these two lives, “twins” as he calls them, and devised a potion to separate his inner duality, to create an outward duality – two separate people. Appearance and reality is another duality explored, which also links to the theme of Victorian Morality. Dr Jekyll’s house is a symbol of his duality, with its smart front door with a shiny knocker, and its shabbier back door to which Mr Hyde has a key.

Science and Religion

In Victorian society, religion would have been very important to people, and as a result people may have been afraid of medical and scientific developments which questioned their religious beliefs. In 1859, Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species which proposed that evolution is how mankind developed, and this shook Victorian society leading to it being banned. Religion would argue that God made us perfectly in his image, but Jekyll is trying to control his own self, and through science, create a different self altogether. Jekyll’s actions could be seen as a rejection of religion and instead, embracing the developments of science and medicine.

Victorian Morality

The figure of a Gentleman was very important in Victorian society as an upstanding member of the upper classes, and someone who was morally and ethically just. Good behaviour, dress and manners were all parts of being a Gentleman, as was maintaining a good reputation. Dr Jekyll embodies the ideal Gentleman in his appearance, dress, manners and silky-smooth voice. But underneath this outward morality, the immorality of Mr Hyde lurks. Due to the strict social conformity, gentlemen would have had to hide their more shameful urges, such as alcohol, gambling and sex. This morality is explored and questioned in the play, by characters such as Enfield who is only a witness to the crime because he too was on the streets at 3am, and more obviously in the ‘despicable’ immoral behaviours of Mr Hyde. The theme is further embodied by the Chorus of Gentlemen who on the surface appear to be upstanding members of the upper class, but who spit, snarl and whisper their echoes of Hyde.

Gender and the Patriarchy

In the original novel, nearly all the characters are male, with the exception of minor characters such as the Girl who is the first victim, and nearly voiceless, disappearing on the same page as she appears. In this adaptation, the gender balance has been re-addressed, with Dr Stevenson, an invention of the playwright, taking centre stage as a protagonist alongside Dr Utterson. The gender roles of the Victorian society are explored as Dr Stevenson is judged and literally looked down on by her male ‘superiors’ in the medical lecture hall. She is referred to as ‘Miss’ rather than Doctor, as the male characters minimise her experience and expertise. The Gentlemen in the Chorus represent the patriarchy, a systemic and toxic male privilege that haunts the stage, the novel and the society.

In this adaptation, the Matron and the Girl also take centre stage alongside Dr Stevenson, becoming her co-investigators. They watch, judge and comment as the Gentlemen fail to catch the murderer in their midst, perhaps because, as Neil Bartlett explains, “they are either consciously or unconsciously on his side”.

Class

Due to the Industrial Revolution, large numbers of working class people had moved to the cities to live and work, leading to over-crowding, poor living conditions and poor health. In this adaptation, there are stark differences between the upper class characters such as the doctors and lawyers, and the working class characters such as the servants and sex workers. Different classes lived in different parts of the city, and the Gentlemen would not be seen in the working class slums -except for at night, when they would secretly travel to the more salubrious areas of the city to satisfy the desires they could not admit to in public. In the play, Mr Hyde has his own lodgings in Soho, a very different place from Dr Jekyll’s home, which is described as “shabby” “dismal” and “a nightmare”. There is a fear of the lower classes from the upper classes, embodied in the characters’ fear of Mr Hyde.

Context

There are several important areas of wider context surrounding the novel which could be useful for students to think about:

Appearance and Criminology

At the time, there were strong beliefs that your appearance was connected to your behaviour, psychology, and role in society. Victorians made links between class, morality and appearance – with maintaining a smart appearance key to being an upstanding member of society. Victorians believed that if you looked good, you were good.

At the time, pseudo-scientists believed your physical appearance made your more likely or not to commit a crime. Cesare Lombroso, an Italian Criminologist, believed that people were “born criminal” and their character could be determined by their physical characteristics, a study known as physiognomy (not backed up by any scientific evidence).

The descriptions of Mr Hyde in the story of being “deformed”, “disgusting” and “something wrong” connect to society’s beliefs at the time.

Charles Darwin Darwin’s theory of Evolution, published in 1859, started to explore the idea that mankind evolved from other animals, and was not created by God.

This was a very challenging idea for the religious Victorian society to accept, and Stevenson explores this uncertainty about nature of humans in the novel.

Sigmund Freud

Although Freud’s work on the id, ego and superego came after Jekyll and Hyde, there are lots of similar ideas in Stevenson’s novel and the developments in psychology at the time. Freud argued that the id was our basic instinct which lies in our subconscious and seeks purely pleasure, the ego was the part of our personality that was rooted in reality and mediated and managed the id’s desires, using reason and rational thought.

The superego was the voice of society, using morals and values to govern the id’s impulses. So it can easily be seen that there are connections between Jekyll and Hyde and Freud’s idea that each human has multiple elements to their mind. Hyde is the id to Jekyll, and the Gentlemen, representing the society, are the superego.

Developments in Science

As already mentioned, developments in biology (Darwin) and psychology (Freud) were all happening in the Victorian period. In addition, there were developments in chemistry and pharmacy, with more awareness of how drugs could treat medical conditions, with Stevenson draws on with Jekyll’s obsession with chemistry and potion making (known as pharmacology – how drugs act on the body).

There were also developments in more pseudo-scientific areas, such as physiognomy mentioned above, and also graphology – the study of handwriting, which Stevenson also refers to with Utterson consulting his colleague about the note from Mr Hyde.

An interview with adaptor, Neil Bartlett

WHAT FIRST DREW YOU TO ADAPTING ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON’S NOVEL?

Sarah Brigham (Director of Jekyll and Hyde and CEO/ Artistic Director of Derby Theatre) asked me do the adaptation. Sarah said that she has always wanted to put this story on stage, and I leapt at the chance of adapting it for her because I have always wanted to do it.

I have known the book since I was a teenager. I love its images - the deserted streets of London at night, which always seem to be waiting for something dreadful to happen; the sheer weirdness of it all - the sense that underneath the respectable surface of the all-male world of the city, there is something that is not being talked about, not being admitted. That resonated very strongly with me when I was 15/16 - the sense that something about the way the world worked was being covered up and lied about - and that thing being this mad, dark, criminal energy of utter selfishness that Mr Hyde incarnates.

Also, one of the great things about the book is that it has such energy. One of the most important things about the book that compared to the other famous novels of the 19th century that we still read - Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, Frankenstein, Dracula, Dorian Gray - it’s short! It packs an amazing punch into a small, fast-moving book. It isn’t some great big heavy work of art. It was inspired by a dream - and that shows. It has the weird swiftness, and the leaping from image to image and voice to voice, that dreams have - but it all hangs together. All of these things make it good for theatre - theatre is all about impact.

WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES OF ADAPTING THE NOVEL?

First of all, deciding how to do the thing that the book is most famous for - the moment when we see the transformation from one body into another. Stevenson is very very clever about this; he gives Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde two very different bodies,

but only provides just enough detail to make you, the reader, do the work of imagining them in your mind. He never describes faces, for instance - Hyde in particular, people keep on saying that they can’t pin down exactly what he looked like. Then, when the time comes for the big moment - when Dr Lanyon actually sees the transformation from Hyde to Jekyll – again, he gives you an incredible atmosphere, some incredibly suggestive and dramatic sentences - but if you look at this passage closely, you’ll see that he leaves it to your imagination to make the actual pictures. Well … in the theatre, you’re dealing with real bodies; the audience sees everything. So, the first thing I did was decide on the idea of the chorus, so that we would see them transform their bodies, but again, in a very suggestive way.

Then I worked out how we could use costume and physical rhythm to give the actor playing Jekyll and Hyde two very different ways of acting. Then I worked out the detail of the switches from one to the other - how much time they would take, and how we could make them as dramatic as possible. The second big challenge was how to handle the fact that in the original book there are really no women. There’s the girl who Hyde tramples - she never speaks - and there’s a housemaid or two. I think this is a very deliberate trick or device on Stevenson’s part. He isn’t talking about the double lives of “people”, but very specifically about the double lives of menabout the dark side of male power and privilege. But ... I didn’t want to write a show where the women in the company didn’t get to do anything or say anything … so I decided to give the task of solving the ‘Case’ (remember the full title: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) to a woman - and to a woman who had every reason to be critical of male power and privilege, because she is working in an all-male profession. This is my character Dr Stevenson. She does what the reader does in the original book; follows the clues until she finally works the solution to the mystery, which is that Jekyll and Hyde aren’t two people, but one. I think Stevenson meant ‘case’ as in a police investigation - but he also

meant ‘case’ as in a medical or psychological case. Police follow clues; doctors interpret symptoms and psychologists use their knowledge of mental health issues to work out what is making someone behave as they do. Dr Stevenson does all three of these things.

HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHAT TO KEEP, WHAT TO CUT AND WHAT TO CHANGE IN THE TEXT?

I read the book with a magic marker in my hand; every time I hit an image or a sentence, or even just a word that I really lovesomething that jumps out at me then I highlighted it. After doing that about ten times, I started to have a sketch of the story as it would work on stage. Basically, I keep all the really great bits, and then do the weeks of hard work where I hammer out a way of putting them together in a way that the audience can follow.

FROM YOUR ADAPTATION, WHAT MAIN THEMES JUMP OUT TO AN AUDIENCE?

Stevenson shows us that Jekyll is able to get away with his double life for so long precisely because the society around him never suspects that a man of his power and privilege could be a violent abuser. I think this has really contemporary resonance. How often have we seen that story being acted out in the news over the past few years?! And…the really great thing about the story is that we get to go inside Jekyll’s head; we see how he justifies himself, lies to himself, pretends that none of this is really his fault - and most of all, we get to go right inside the way that he actually loves being Mr Hyde - loves the power of being able to get away with being him - and believes that he can both indulge and control him. These are all the classic forms of denial that abusive people in power use to talk away their addictions.

WHAT CONTEMPORARY PARALLELS DO YOU MAKE IN THE ADAPTATION?

People often ask me how I “make” contemporary parallels when I am adapting an old book. But I didn’t “make” these parallels - they are right there. He may be dead, but Stevenson, in a way, is a very contemporary writer. I mean, he’s asking the same questions as we ask. And - this is a really important point - he is unafraid of asking us to imagine what it would actually feel like to be Jekyll and Hyde. He asks us to admit that maybe we could all go there … to look at the story from the inside, not to judge it from the outside. It is so brilliant, I think, that he ends the book with Jekyll’s own voice. That is the climax; we go right inside. Those last two pages shake me every

time I read them. Which contemporary men have been in the papers in the last couple of years that you can think of? Who might have written similar stuff in their very private diaries? If only they’d dared to put their most private and dangerous thoughts down on paper?

DID YOU HAVE A CLEAR PERFORMANCE STYLE IN MIND WHEN WRITING THE PLAY?

Very much so. When I am working on the script, I have to be able to see the scenes in my head. So, the movement, the set, even the sounds - these were all in my head while I was writing. I wanted the language - the words - to be Stevenson’s, because I think he is such a brilliant writer to sentences, and because I wanted to stay in the gothic world of the original nineteenth century setting. But I wanted the body language - and the idea that the actors could talk directly to the audience - and the use of microphones and sound - to all be very contemporary. Because I think the novel is both of those things. Yes, it was published in 1886 - but it still really speaks to us. That is why it has never gone out of print since the day it was published.

DO YOU ENVISAGE THE TEXT CHANGING IN REHEARSAL WITH THE ACTORS, IF SO, HOW DO YOU SEE THE REHEARSAL PROCESS INFLUENCING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCRIPT?

Before rehearsals started, Sarah Brigham and I got a group of actors together and had them read my script out loud to us. This was so that we could hear if there were any bits of the story that didn’t work or were boring or unclear. Then I went away and sorted those things out, by rewriting and cutting some bits. Other people do this differently, but I believe that is very important to get all the basics of the script right before rehearsal, because in a theatre like Derby, the actors only have four weeks before they get on stage in which to learn their words and do all the work on the movement, and if you start changing the script too much or saying you know what, I’ve got a whole new idea about your character here – well, you drive them crazy, and actually prevent them from getting on with their jobs. That said, during rehearsals, Sarah will come to me and say can we cut this line, or can we move this line from here to here, or can we add a few words here to make this clearer? All of that always happens. So, small changes yes, big changes no. The biggest discoveries in the rehearsal room are always when you see that because of how a moment works physically on stage, you can cut the lines where a character explains what has just happened or what it means. Actors love those kind of cuts; they love to show, not tell.

Interview questions by Carolyn Bradley

Pre-show workshop

This practical workshop can be used to introduce students to the themes and narrative of Jekyll & Hyde before they watch the performance. You could pick and choose from these activities or put them together for a longer workshop.

You will need: Post its, pens, paper, the synopsis, highlighters, and key quotes printed out.

1 Still Images

Put students into groups and ask them to create still images based on each of the following themes: Duality, Personality, Appearance vs Reality, Nature vs Evolution, Morality, Religion vs Science, Patriarchy. Their still images could be literal or abstract. Encourage students to experiment with levels, physicality, and contact work. The images could be performed to music to create an emotive piece of physical theatre.

2 Key moments

Give students the synopsis from this education pack. Ask students to read the synopsis together, encouraging students to take it in turns to read aloud to each other, developing oracy. After students have read the synopsis, ask them to split the story into 10 key moments, which they could highlight or write on post its or paper. Once they have established their 10 key moments, they can then develop each moment into a still image, and then work on transitions between each image.

3 Interpreting Quotes

In groups, give students one of these quotes from the play. Ask students to discuss the quote, thinking about what it could mean and why it is significant.

Students could then either feedback their thoughts to the class or use the quote as a stimulus for an improvised scene, building on their understanding of the play’s themes.

I was the first woman they had ever admitted to their hospital. They were polite, of course – but I knew they were judging me. That they wanted me to fail. In addition to which … well that whole strange affair of Dr Jekyll was one of my very first serious cases. (Dr Stevenson)

Oh there was definitely something wrong about him-

Wrong with his appearance, I meanOh definitely –Downright detestable, if you ask me ! (Gentlemen)

Oh dear sir no - Mr Hyde never dines here. He mostly comes and goes by the laboratory side of things, sir, we see very little of him on this side of the house. (Mrs Poole)

I believe that others will come after us – that they will outstrip our current state of knowledge – and that one day we will come to understand that not only do two basic and conflicting natures contend in the field of every human consciousness, but that man will ultimately be known to contain multitudes … (Jekyll)

If only these two “persons” of mine, I began to think, might be truly split. Dis-associated. If the “sordid” or violent part of me - for instancemight walk his downward path delivered from all remorse, while his more upright twin might carry on doing all the good things he was doing, but no longer threatened by Disgrace. (Jekyll)

4 Transformations

Ask students to walk around the space, just as themselves at a neutral pace. Ask students to observe their own body language, pace, rhythm and gait. Now tell students you will call out a character from the play, and they must change their body language to adapt to that character. Ask students to consider their weight, pace, gait, which part of the body they lead with. Ask students to transform from one character to another, either slowly or quickly, and observe these changes. You could play around with transforming from Jekyll to Hyde and back, and play around with levels of exaggeration and subtlety.

5 Costume design task

In groups, give students two large pieces of paper and pens, colours etc. Ask them to design two costumes for the same actor who is to play Jekyll and Hyde. How will the character quickly transform his costume to play both roles? Students could share their ideas with the class at the end.

6 Set design task

Either using the image bank in this pack or without, ask students to design a set for this performance. Ask students to consider how the back door and front door of Jekyll’s house can be shown, and how the design can be manipulated to switch between both locations.

7 Staging a scene

Using the scene extract on the following page, ask students to stage this section in groups. This is from near the end of the play, when Jekyll is explaining his version of events to the rest of the characters. This is after his death, and is a way of dramatizing the later part of the novel which is written in letter form. Students could consider how to characterise Jekyll to show his growing excitement at his brilliant plan, and how to characterise the other characters to show their reactions to Jekyll – are they disgusted, entranced, terrified, intrigued? Groups could perform their scenes and then give each other peer feedback on the performances.

8 Theme or context research

Using the themes or context in this pack, you could cut up the information on each theme or element of context, and ask students to read summarise and present this information to the class. Alternatively you could ask students to go away and research a theme or element of context for homework, before they have read the information in this pack, and present their research to the class.

Script extract

MR ENFIELD (defensively) Well I had no reason to suspect -

DR JEKYLL

Quite, Mr Enfield - while I kept on giving dinner parties -

LANYON Which I later very much regretted attending.

DR JEKYLL Oh did you , Dr Lanyon – I took those foul rooms in Soho -

THE INSPECTOR (defensively) In which we later found all the clues we needed -

DR JEKYLL But never me, Inspector - and I added that clause to my will -

UTTERSON To which I objected to most strongly -

DR JEKYLL - but then drew up anyway.

(now flaunting himself in front of DOCTOR S; a rise in temperature; he becomes a tempter).

You see – Doctor - I didn't risk anything; I merely planned.

A new life. A new life - can you imagine?

DOCTOR S Of course I can.

DR JEKYLL Really?

DOCTOR S (right back at him) Really, Doctor. How do you think I got here?

DR JEKYLL By planning?

DOCTOR S Yes – but I would have stopped. I'd have stopped as soon as I realised what Hyde actually was. What he did.

DR JEKYLL Oh really, doctor - are you sure? All I had to do each night was to get home, swallow a second dose, and whatever Edward Hyde had been up to after dark passed away like the stain of breath upon a mirror. There is no pleasure, my dear, like the pleasure of complete safety.

What to look for when watching the show

We don’t recommend that students make notes during the production, it may spoil their experience and they might miss something!

They should give the performance their full attention. Instead, use this pack to prepare students before they see the production, and you could give them pointers about what to look out for.

If you are preparing students for the Live theatre section of the GCSE Drama written exam, you could put students into groups and give them one area of responsibility each to pay particular attention to during the production, such as:

Sound

Lighting

Set

Costume

Acting moments

Ensemble work

If you would like to focus more on acting and characterisation, you could ask students to look at one of the below characters and pick out some key moments for them:

• Dr Stevenson

Jekyll/Hyde

Utterson

The Girl

If you are studying the play as part of GCSE English preparation, you could ask students to focus on the following questions:

• How is the stage adaptation different from the novel?

• How does the adaptation bring out Stevenson’s themes?

• How is Victorian society presented on stage?

• What understanding do we get of Jekyll’s character from this performance?

• How is Utterson conveyed in this performance?

• How is the portrayal of Hyde similar or different to his description in the book?

• How is the wider context of the novel communicated in this adaptation?

Design images and image reference bank

Here are some images which were key to Jessica Curtis’s design of the show:

Notes on the adaptation from Neil Bartlett

The playwright, Neil Bartlett, has provided extensive notes in his adaptation of the text, which may be useful for teachers or students in studying the production.

Picturing the space

The space that has been in my head while writing this script has been a nineteenth-century lecture/anatomy theatre, with tiers of raised seats. If you google the Anatomy Theatre of Edinburgh University – for instance. A scene of medical dissections and lectures - but also a kind of courtroom for the giving of evidence – and also … a kind of theatre.

It's important that THE GENTLEMEN are above and behind the women. That they can be seen looming over them.

It is also important that the acting out of the story never stops for a scene change; everything is done swiftly, with sound and light and storytelling.

As you'll see, the floor of the stage is essentially that of the Doctor's hospital ward – but it also becomes a street - a dining room - a Soho den -

The paraphernalia/props required by the story are all medical; screens, gurneys, white coats, beakers, pills, clipboards with notes, a lecturer's blackboard …

The period is nineteenth century; the novel dates from 1886. However, there should be electronic sound and possibly even microphones for the chorus (either visible or invisible, according to taste).

The tricks and transformations

An audience comes to this story expecting transformation … so; let's give it to them!

Also in my mind while writing this adaptation has been the idea of a magician's transformation cabinet – one of those big boxes with doors that get wheeled, spun round to show you there's nothing round the back - and inside which people can then be made to appear and disappear and even transform inside while being apparently locked inside.

This idea was inspired by a quote I found from Robert Louis Stevenson where he says “all I first dreamed about Dr Jekyll was that a man was being pressed into a cabinet, when he swallowed a drug and changed into another being”.

The trickery involved is actually quite simple – a spot of doubling, a spot of misdirection and clear use of costume quick-changes. But it should add a lot of tension - and pleasure - to the staging.

I have also, as you will see, used the idea of a chorus as a basic way of embodying and amplifying Dr Jekyll's famous two-bodied-ness. This should give plenty of sinister spectacle – and also communicate the idea that “doubleness” might be lurking inside anybody's body …

Sounds

The microphones for the men should allow their voices to be disembodied – and distorted, if required. Voices in our heads.

Also; singing. I've written in two kinds of acapella singing for the chorus; hymns, and music hall. In other words, in keeping with the theme of split personalities, lurid nineteenth century piety – and its flipside, the dark humour of the music- hall.

I've suggested the hymn When I survey the wondrous cross, because the tune is great, but also because the lyrics are so shame-obsessed – just right for Jekyll-as-Hyde. In this draft, for a music-hall theme I've used “Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner” - a jaunty little ditty to commit murder by!

In counterpoint to those period “Victorian” sources, my gothinfluenced headphone-playlist while writing this draft has included Siouxsie Sioux (‘The Scream’); Bauhaus (‘Bela Lugosi's Dead’) and Bowie's ‘Blackstar’ (especially the ‘Lazarus’ video).

So feel free to let rip with the electronica in your head.

The timeline of this production

I have condensed the timeline of the original. Here is the timeline of this version:

• Dr Jekyll does not consider himself a hypocrite, but he does lead two separate lives, the private (as a man with the normal tastes of his class in alcohol and sex workers) and the public (as a distinguished doctor and philanthropist)

• In middle age, in the course of his medical enquiries, Dr Jekyll makes a momentous discovery.

• He is now able to lead his double life without either shame or fear because he now has two separate bodies.

• To facilitate this double life, he makes a new will; sets up an establishment in Soho; gives his alter-ego Hyde a cheque book and a back door key (so that he has access to the necessary drugs to turn back in Jekyll at the end of each “episode”).

• December: the girl; the first accidental challenge to the double life. Hyde gets away by writing a cheque.

• Hyde worsens – the extended period of the double life. Jekyll has trouble deflecting the concerns of both Lanyon and Utterson but manages to keep them both at arm’s length.

• The drugs and transformations get harder to manage; there is some blurring of the two identities - but it all works. Nearly a year passes.

• October 14th: The murder of Danvers Carew. Hyde is identified as the suspect, and the police trace him to Soho.

• The night after the murder; on the run, Hyde tricks Lanyon into rescuing him, by getting him the drugs that enable him to turn back into Jekyll.

• Nov-Dec: after vowing never to take the drugs again, Dr Jekyll devotes himself to good works. Hyde seems to have disappeared entirely, and the police abandon the hunt for Carew's murderer. Jekyll is tempted by the pleasures of life as Mr Hyde but manages to stay on the straight and narrow.

• February: The involuntary return of Hyde – in St James Park.

• Dr Jekyll shuts himself away. He writes to Utterson asking to be left alone while he tries to sort out his problems.

• The last week: he ups his dosage, but the drugs fail.

• The last night: Hyde threatens to return and take over. Jekyll, seeking to put an end to Hyde, takes cyanide. However, it is as Hyde that he dies.

Research material

The following links have been used in the writing and rehearsal process and may be useful for teachers or students learning about the production.

All links should be checked for suitability before sharing with children and young people.

A timeline of medicine https://www.npg.org.uk/learning/a-picture-of-health/timeline/

Further information about Freud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud

Text of novel online https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43/43-h/43-h.htm#chap02

Deacon Brodie https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/DeaconWilliam-Brodie/

Women in Medicine Elizabeth Garrett Anderson https://www.cwplus.org.uk/about-us/heritage/300-years-ofchelsea-and-westminster/women-in-medicine/

First British female surgeon https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/dame-louisa-aldrich-blakebritains-first-female-surgeon/ https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/careers-in-surgery/women-in-surgery/ history/

First British female doctor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Garrett_Anderson

One of the first Black female nurses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Brewster