Separating the Good from the Evil @ ACT

There are two ways to do Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: you can have Jekyll be the good guy--and he's the obvious good guy, or at least the traditional good guy, a doctor, who functions in society and is respected by peers and whatnot--or you can have Hyde, a mere Mr., be the good guy. Hyde is, of course, always the bad guy, the brute, the animal, the drunk, the pusher-downer of children. He's a "bad guy", but you can tell the story of Jekyll and Hyde in such a way that Hyde is the focal point of the audience's sympathy.

The Great Illustrated Classics version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that introduced Seattlest to the story so many years ago focused primarily on the plight of Dr. Jekyll. It wasn't a very nuanced telling, as we remember it, but, then again, it's not a very nuanced story. Inside every man a consciousness of pure good and a consciousness of pure evil do perpetual battle? How Victorian. Anyway, the modern way to tell the story is to elevate the passionate Mr. Edward Hyde to the roll of the put-upon beast, the protagonist who didn't ask to be bad--he was just ripped from his good and godly soul co-habitant by science--and that's how ACT is currently performing the story in the round Allen theater.

Dr. Jekyll must be the loser if Hyde is the winner, and Bradford Farwell injects his Jeykll character with healthy doses of arrogance and sanctimony in ACT's production. Jekyll's an asshole, and a creepy asshole to top it off. Everyone else in the show--but chiefly David Anthony Lewis--plays a Hyde whose blood runs pretty hot in a violent outbursty sense, but is otherwise shy and thoughtful. Is it a spoiler if we tell you which of the two get the girl?

The stage is spare, with only a few doors and platforms assisting the actors in the telling, but Steampunk fans might like the laboratory that ascends from the floor late in the play. Some towers and off-stage appearances and entrances give the sense that the play is happening around the audience, rather than the audience surrounding the stage, but all of the violence is committed front and center where everyone can see it, but is safely removed from it, or off-stage entirely. (Burning a bum passed out in the alley? Really, Hyde? We get it. You're bad. We never thought otherwise.)

Today at 2 p.m. is the last pay-what-you-will performance. Otherwise, ACT's adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde runs through May, 10 with some tickets still available.