Dr. Jeykll And Mr. Hyde

The other night I went to Theater Memphis to see the play version of the novel "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." This book was written by Robert Lewis Stevenson, and is tells the story of a man struggling with good and evil. Stevenson uses one character who is in two different states of mind that portrays what a person feels like on the inside. Dr. Jekyll is a person in thee everyday life. You go to work you do your job keep your head down, go home eat dinner with your family...basically its just going through the motions. Mr. Hyde is the part of a person that wants to knock out his boss, slam their car into the driver that just cut you off or throw their food at a rude waiter. This story was moved to the stage last weekend and I decided I wanted to go see it. As I was watching the play I was trying to follow along with the story as if I was reading the book. I found this to be difficult because of the acting. Most of them seemed like they would rather be somewhere else then on stage that Friday night and thanks to their attitude I can't say I blame them. They never brought Mr. Hyde to life so he looked like he was less of a monster and more like Walter Matthau in "Grumpy Old Men." The rest of the cast was similar with their roles looking more like a middle school drama club than professional actors traveling the country. As far as the set design goes and the costumes that were worn I would have to say they were perfect. They fit the Victorian era theme as I see it and the set had a dark and gloomy feel to it like I was really walking through the streets of London under the smog filled clouds during the height of the industrial revolution. As far as the directing goes the story does seem to follow the book and still brings the same message that Stevenson was trying to get across. So excluding the poor acting the play was a very good example of the universal and never ending battle of good and evil as well as a display of internal struggle that almost every person through out history has had to deal with.