We all love a chorus line. We love the coordination, the sense of shared endeavour and the way the stage is filled. But what if a chorus line were a force for evil? Instead of a joyful celebration of mutual enterprise, what if it were something protective and sinister?
That is the case in the ensemble of top-hatted gentlemen who stand as one behind Nicholas Shaw’s Dr Jekyll in this #MeToo-influenced adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novella. They form a chorus, yes, but it is one designed to close ranks, evade scrutiny and maintain the status quo.
Directed by Sarah Brigham in Neil Bartlett’s new adaptation, they step down with their canes from the steps of the dissection-room set designed by Jessica Curtis to perform a synchronised dance of distress and defiance in support of one of their own.
Bartlett introduces a framing device to put this boys’ club charade in perspective. For much of the show, Jekyll is a minor character. His alter ego is even more so – as the elusive Mr Hyde, Shaw keeps his back to us as he does a bandy-legged dance in bowler hat and skinny jeans, like a skittish Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.
Centre stage, instead, is Polly Lister as Dr Stevenson, the first woman admitted to an all-male hospital, who pieces together the evidence of Hyde’s nocturnal violence like the lead in a TV detective show. Joined by Tifé Kusoro, as Hyde’s first victim, and Hilary Greatorex, as housekeeper Mrs Poole, she is quietly determined to expose not just Jekyll and his secret double life, but also the network of men who would rather cover up than fess up.
“You start with a question and the next thing you know, you’re judging a fellow,” says Jekyll’s friend Enfield (Craig Painting), a slimy man who revels in having witnessed Hyde in action but would never challenge the probity of a colleague. With the rumbles and scrapes of Ivan Stott’s score and the monochrome gloom of Simeon Miller’s lighting, this is a Jekyll and Hyde with all the Victorian creepiness you’d expect, but it is also a bitter commentary on the “slow cancer of disgrace” that eats away at a closed male society.
At Derby theatre until 22 October. Then at Queen’s theatre, Hornchurch, 26 October–12 November.
