ArtNELA - Northeast La. Arts and Culture

Show goodies: a program, DVD and magnet.

BASTROP, La. 6/8/09 | Published in Delta Style Sept. 2009

I spent the last two days trying to re-create this blog on its own domain, and miracle of miracles, I have figured it out at last. Welcome to the self-hosted, official new location. I’m also working on graphics and video. Hopefully those sections won’t take long to put up.

I said earlier that I wasn’t an art critic, but maybe I am, just a little. So here’s an overdue rundown on Jekyll and Hyde … the performances ran for two weeks in July at The Rose Theater, a quaint place in Bastrop, La., where they even have a lighted, scrolling marquee across the front, a classic addition that I haven’t seen often. Something else they offer is free refreshments during intermission. I saw that and started wondering if I had crashed a private party. This is small theater, of course, but with these special touches, it’s obvious there are people who care about its welfare. I’ve seen a lot of community theaters come and go, so it’s nice to see one that’s thriving.

I spoke with the director, Hal Robinson, just before the Saturday performance on July 25.

“The idea to do this show actually came up about five years ago, but we’ve only just recently been able to do it,” he said. “It’s not the kind of show we normally do … It’s taken about three months of preparation, the cast was chosen only about eight weeks ago and we’ve been in production since. I think people have been surprised by how good it is. The voices are outstanding, and we have a great cast.”

A partial cast shot following the July 25 performance of Jeckyll and Hyde at the Rose Theater, Bastrop, LA.

I was happy to see the show for myself. Though I was late getting a reservation, the theater granted me a comp ticket in the balcony. It’s an area that just doesn’t get the same attention as the lower levels; in this case, it meant being in a glaring spotlight from the keyboardist’s music stand about ten feet away. This was a distraction and a blessing–it killed the dark-theater ambiance, but provided lots of light for me to write notes. The keyboardist and single source of music, Charles Fricke, was really on top of his game though, and I appreciated his timing and attention to the dialogue during the show. Live music really makes a tremendous difference.

The chorus is always a part of any musical that I’m curious about, because I’ve been a part of them myself so often. It’s easy to forget when you’re in a crowd that you are just as unique and visible as a main characters onstage. This show had a chorus of about twenty people that was too big for the stage but they handled it well. The highlight was their sound, which was more than I expected and surprisingly well-mixed–credit to the sound engineer, Randy Norman, and the vocalists, because it all worked together, and there were times when the soprano and tenor voices really stood out at just the right moments and at a perfect volume.

Actors Tony Bales and Kathy Marquis in the lobby after the July 25 performance of Jeckyll and Hyde.

The choreographer, Aleta Eley, played it mostly safe with the chorus, and there were highlights such as a full split by one young chorister, and a nicely-posed pyramid at the end of “Murder, Murder.” She introduced some fight action during Hyde’s first murder scene with the Bishop of Basingstoke, played by Steve Barton–the poor fellow–and both actors played this with a good amount of rolling around and physicality. I occasionally wanted to chorus to be more active in various scenes, but there’s always a fine line between them being involved or taking over, particularly in a small theater.

Costumer Marcy Hall obviously put a lot of attention into obtaining or creating period clothing, and saw that everyone knew how to wear it. The bear coat on Hyde during the second act was impressive and made him look three times larger than life.

Leading man Victor Fricke, whose son and father were also members of the cast and crew, gave an excellent turn as Jekyll/Hyde. My impression of him was that of a preacher at the pulpit, begging his followers to believe in him, and as the show moved ahead, this character was the perfect backdrop to Hyde, whose altered appearance quite literally made me a little jumpy. It seemed that fella might get out of hand and start roaming the theater once he was done with the cast. The change from Jekyll to Hyde was really no more than a change in breathing, posture and voice, plus a generous explosion of natural long hair, but Fricke made it totally effective. He managed to get a laugh, too, by slouching over his lab notes and quipping with a sly glance to the audience, “Four-o’clock … and all is wee-e-ll …” while it most apparently was not.

Fricke’s vocals were authentic and strong, and backed up with confidence by the supporting characters. I enjoyed that Fricke really gave it his all a few times, such as “This is the Moment,” and these efforts were likewise applauded by an audience that was especially responsive throughout the evening. There was also a vocal quartet near the end of the first act that received a well-deserved round of applause, with Fricke as Jekyll, Donna Edwards as Emma, Toby Otero as Sir Danvers Carew and Russell Givens as Jekyll’s lawyer, G. J. Utterson.

Charles Fricke plays a bank of keyboards for the July 25 performance of Jeckyll and Hyde at the Rose Theater in Bastrop, LA.

I think I have all that right … the program for the show didn’t feature a scene list, for some reason, so I’m having to go back and forth between my notes and the Wikipedia version to figure out who went where. There were a number of too-long breaks between scenes where a full program might have given fidgety audience members something to read while they waited.

The set was a sparse red floor with four red posts for the first few scenes, and I was happy to see some very nicely detailed pieces roll on later. I really loved the laboratory cabinet, which featured flickering colored lights, a wide selection of beakers, tangled tubes and a real gas lamp. This gas lamp, it turned out, had a higher purpose: it was the catalyst for the entire front of the cabinet to flame up at the end of “Obsession.”

The Rose Theater, Bastrop LA

Crew member Moe Marquis, who built the gas piping for the set, told me that getting the flames to work required someone to be standing near the gas line with a lighter in hand, ready to go. I couldn’t tell that there was anything so straightforward going on during the show, though, and the couple of times that flames appeared, it just looked like Hyde had shot them there out of his hand with a spectacular flourish.

Actors Toby and Dana Otero in the lobby after the July 25 performance of Jeckyll and Hyde.

Outdoor scenes were implied via projected images on the back wall. This would have been aided by some London fog pumped in from the wings, though it might have just obscured everything.

I also enjoyed Mr. Stride, played very confidently by Tony Bayles; Dana Otero as the Madame, who was blessed with some welcome one-liners; and Matt Wilkens as the very scary Spider, who I have written in my notes as “Dark Pimp.” I didn’t know who he was at the time, and that was the best description I could think of. Also, Poole, Jekyll’s butler, played by Roy McCoy, was about as close to a living Igor as I’ve seen, though I couldn’t be sure if he was trying to be amusing or if it was just coming out that way.

Larua Ulrich gave us everything we might have expected out of Hyde’s tortured female interest, Lucy Harris. Her voice was rich and matched her corsetted, hourglass, lady-of-the-night character. Ulrich later told me that she had wanted to play the role since she was ten years old. I had fun watching her pull off her sassy solo during her intro at the Red Rat pub, then the change into some of her softer songs such as “A New Life,” and felt like I had gotten to know her by the time she was sliced and diced by Hyde at the end. Ah, it’s just a fake knife, right? Because that scream sounded real.

The show needed to pick up the pace from the first act, and Hyde whacking his way through bodies in the second act definitely sped things up. By the show’s nature, the most dramatic scenes were entirely Hyde’s. Watching Hyde and Jekyll face off during “Confrontation” was fascinating and must’ve taken quite a bit of solitary rehearsal on Fricke’s part.

“I’d do this kind of thing more often if I had the time,” Fricke told me later. “It’s so much fun.”

Special thanks from me to the cast members who passed along a memento magnet and the DVD. I’ll post a video from that soon.

The Rose Theater’s next production is Alice in Wonderland, Aug 7, 8 and 9.

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