Diane and I left Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical at the Intermission. The story, based on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson novel of a noble doctor who frees his Id, is a dark one. Once every decade or so, a dark play can survive and become commercial: The Phantom of the Opera and Sweeny Todd come to mind. But Jekyll & Hyde is nowhere in that class. The music was forgettable, the lyrics banal. Constantine Maroulis (from American Idol) sings his heart out as Dr. Jekyll and the creepy Mr. Hyde. Deborah Cox belts out her numbers, too. But none of the songs captured our interest. The local newspaper article on Jekyll & Hyde noted the producers were “tweaking” the play as they went along. They need to blow it up. GRADE: F
Wow. Thanks for the warning.
JEKYLL & HYDE is currently touring the country, Patti. If it shows up in your neighbor…skip it!
Wow! I haven’t ever walked out on a film even, let alone a musical. This must have truly been bad. Not that I planned on seeing it anyway as it isn’t the subject matter my wife would enjoy, but now I won’t even be tempted.
Life is too short to sit through a crappy musical, Carl. The actors sang their hearts out, but the music was lame.
Bummer. We always avoided it when it played here – I guess we were right.
I hate wasting money like that but sometimes you need to walk out. Life’s too short.
You’re right about Life being too short, Jeff. This touring JEKYLL & HYDE is different from the version that bombed on Broadway, but it still sucks.
Nice to know I’m not the only one who’s walked out on something dreadful. Yup, life is too short.
Inane rock music, fractured plot, and insipid lyrics forced us to leave, Beth. JEKYLL & HYDE was part of our yearly theater package. We have THE BOOK OF MORMON coming up in 2013 which should be a vast improvement over JEKYLL & HYDE.
Gee, George, will Romney be in THE BOOK OF MORMON? Wouldn’t that be exciting.
We don’t go to plays here, just never were interested. Down in SoCal I had season tickets to a fine repertory group for many years but dropped it for budget reasons.
Mitt Romney would not be out of place in THE BOOK OF MORMAN, Rick. I hate that the conservatives in the Republican Party are blaming Mitt for the Election Day loss. There’s plenty of blame to go around. But, I’m convinced that if Mitt had chosen Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida, he would be President-Elect today. The Hispanic vote decided this Election. I put this on the board in my classroom today: 50,000 X 365 X 4 = 73,000,000. Every day in the U.S. 50,000 Latinos turn 18. By 2016, the Hispanic bloc of votes will determine the Election. Start learning Spanish!
George, they been trying to make this musical work for about 20 years now. And I mean that. We went to see an early version of it back in the 90s and it wasn’t much even then.
Translating Stevenson’s classic novel into a musical might be impossible, Dan. The novel is dark so the musical is also going to be dark. Unless the musical featured some great music, like THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and SWEENY TODD did, few people would want to attend.
“Life is too short to sit through a crappy musical”…indeed!!!
As Dan pointed out, Carl, the producers of JEKYLL & HYDE have been “tweaking” this mess for 20 years! After sitting through an hour of boring visuals and silly rock music that strained our patience, my wife and I walked out.