Who is to say who is good or evil?

We have always been drawn to material combining good and evil, especially if it includes exploring the psychological nature of the characters involved, which is why the likes of Sweeney Todd, Phantom of the Opera and especially Jekyll & Hyde have appealed to us. They all dealt with horrible crimes, were purportedly based on real events, and told of great love stories gone awry. 

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom told of a real Swedish opera singer Kristina Nilsson who sought out Erik, a deformed masked composer living in the cellars of the Paris Opera to mentor her. He fell in love with her, but let her go in the end into the arms of the man she loved. In Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, there is proof of a real mad barber using a razor and trapdoor to rob and kill customers who ended up in meat pies.

The real-life Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was hanged to death in October 1, 1788 after living a double life as respectable citizen by day and killer by night. This person became Robert Louis Stevenson’s model for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

When given the first, original and darker version of Jekyll & Hyde to work on, its director Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, who is Repertory Philippines’ associate artistic director, realized she wanted to strip down the musical to its barest elements, rethink its epic history and make it real and relatable unlike the monster in the Stevenson story. “I wanted him to be a real person who with the potion is simply freed of inhibition, conscience and guilt… I didn’t want an actual physical change but a body adjustment, a change in attitude and in how the character occupies space. There had to be an arrogance about Hyde. Jekyll was not a bad person; he truly believed he had found a solution to make the world a better place to live in. But he never considered what he would do with the evil once he succeeded in separating it.”

Junix Inocian returns to Repertory in a landmark role. — Photos by Raul Montesa and Jojit Lorenzo

It was obvious that the entire chorus brought onstage as actor, narrator and singer had to be more than excellent, without the help of elaborate sets and special effects. The lead role of Lucy (Kalila Aguilos) dreams of the kind Jekyll, but is attracted by the danger in Hyde. Menchu wanted rawness from Lucy, unlike the educated Emma (Cris Villonco). “I wanted polar opposites. I got that with a Cris and Kalila combination,” explained Menchu.

Jett Pangan, known as a rock icon being the frontman of Dawn, and Michael Williams, who had done Miss Saigon and King and I in London, alternate as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. They were Menchu’s perfect choices. “Both give very different performances and I directed both very differently. They alternate simply because it would be very hard for anyone of them to do two shows in one day.”

Junix Inocian as Jekyll’s lawyer and friend Gabriel Utterson joins the ensemble onstage in narrating the entire play.“I don’t think this has ever been done before. Even the set is based on a Victorian surgery theater… When I first saw the set, it was a bit overwhelming. But Menchu’s original idea of telling the story, plus John Batalla’s excellent lighting, really works,” related Junix who is doing the musical for the first time.

In London, where he has been based for 20 years, Junix has been busy on TV filming a new series Sinbad and doing voiceovers for video games Shogun2 (Total War), Brink, Just Cause 2 and The Cursed Mountain. While in the Philippines, he has watched the hilarious Living the Vida Imelda with Carlos Celdran and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown which he thought fit Robbie Guevara to a T. He said he did the show for Rep years ago as Snoopy. He would love to again play Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof and Sweeney Todd.

Meantime, the couple in front of us were whispering loudly that the set looked like a trial court. Impeachment trial? Menchu would have loved to hear that. She did confess that “I wanted it to look like a trial. A take on Who is to say who is Good and who is Evil.” With that, Jekyll & Hyde certainly is very timely!

Jekyll & Hyde runs with extensions at Onstage, Greenbelt 1, Makati on April 13, 14, 20, 21 and 22 at 8 p.m., and 14, 15, 21 and 22 at 3:30 p.m. For details, call 571-6926 or log on to www.ticketworld.com.ph.

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