Jekyll & Hyde - The Musical with David Hasselhoff

It's a long way from the beach and the talking car...

Pictures

Synopsis

Act One

    Dr. Henry Jekyll's father is very sick with a disease going around London and the doctors can't cure him. Henry thinks it is because his dark side has taken over and if he can relinquish the hold on it he can cure him as well as others. He tells his friend John and his future father in law Sir Danvers and they support him. Henry says his drugs are natural, but John wonders if he is tinkering with gods' work. The people in the town are worried about the disease, but suspicious of Henry and his methods. Jekyll does a presentation at the hospital where he works for approval of his new plan for all the big shots and they are horrified that he wants to do his tests on human beings. He is voted down by everyone except for his father in law. He wishes to continue, but doesn't know where else to turn. John is apprehensive, but knows Henry is possessed to see the experiment through.
    Jekyll is to marry Emma and her father holds a gathering at his house for all his friends. Everyone gets restless that Henry is late because of his work in his basement lab. The snooty people make snide comments about Henry and his weird methods including a suitor who also wants Emma. When Henry and Emma are alone during a fireworks display he confesses that life with him will be hard and she would be better off without him. She knows this and accepts it. Her father is still worried about his daughter though because of Henry's quirks.
    That night Henry's colleagues take him to a burlesque show/house of ill repute as sort of a bachelor party. Lucy is a new girl there and she is running late for the show and she is also the star. Henry becomes enchanted by her and the song she sings in her show, "Good and Evil" because it mirrors the feelings he is fighting against. He talks to her after the show and she thinks he is just another scumbag until he opens himself to her about her song and his feelings and how she helped him. He now knows that while he is a doctor he can also be the patient. He gives her his card if she ever needs help. That night he returns home and realizes what he must do, he must continue his experiment on himself. He injects himself and instantly starts to feel strange and keeps a log in his journal of what happens to him. He thrashes about on the floor and then changes to Hyde and likes it. He then goes out as Hyde.
    Emma comes around to see Henry because she hasn't seen him in weeks, but the butler turns her away because he is busy with his work. John is also worried and goes to see Henry to see what is going on. Henry gives him three letters only to be opened if he goes away or becomes very ill. John doesn't want to do it, but Henry insists. Now John, Emma and her father are all worried about Henry. Lucy then comes to Henry for help in fixing her wounds after she was attacked. He wonders why she didn't go to the hospital and she says they don't care about her type and after all he offered to help her. He agrees and when he asks who did this to her she tells him it was Hyde and Henry is scared since he knew nothing of it. She begins to fall in love with him, but knows she can never be with someone as respected as he is and regrets the decisions that led to her life's path.
    Meanwhile the Bishop who denied Henry a chance to continue his experiments is paying for deviant sexual behavior with a young black girl. Hyde catches up with him and tells him off before he finishes him off.

Act Two

    John is overcome with the burden placed on him at being cut out of Henry's life and no one knows what is going on with him anymore and he doesn't even know himself. Word of the murder spreads like wildfire and the town is in a panic. They have a funeral for the bishop and afterwards Hyde catches up with another one of the big shots that spurned Henry's experiments, General Lord Glossop. He kills him too and there is even more panic in the community. The only time Henry appears anymore is to go to the drugstore for more drugs to continue his experiments. Hyde continues to hunt down Henry's persecutors this time coming across both Sir Archibald and Lady Beaconsfield. He swiftly kills both of them. Lord Theodore is also with them, but he escapes. Soon after Lord Theodore is with Emma and her father at the train station as he plans to leave London. As soon as he is alone Hyde appears and finishes him off to. More panic ensues as some believe it is a gang as there are no witnesses to the murders.
    Emma can't stand not having seen Henry for four months and she goes to his house and finds his notes in his lab and gets a peek into what is going on. Henry is upset with her and she sees how sick he is and leaves. She is willing to wait for him until he is finished with his experiment. John then arrives having read the letter he was entrusted with. Henry is upset with him, but John says Henry is sick and had no choice. The letter says if anything was to happen to Henry that all of his assets should be turned over to Hyde. John is a lifelong friend and is disturbed that he doesn't know who Hyde is. He tries to convince him he is a close colleague on his experiment. Now both Lucy and Emma sing their love for Henry in a duet about him without being aware of each others presence. Hyde then goes to see Lucy again because of Henry's liking for him. She is powerless to turn him away since he is a paying customer.
    John comes to Henry with the drugs Henry brought and finally meets Hyde. He wants to know where Henry is and Hyde says he wouldn't believe him. He won't give him the drugs until he tells him where Henry is. He then grabs the drugs that John brought to him and fills a syringe and jams it into his leg. He switches back to Henry and now John finally knows the truth. He gives John a letter to give to Lucy with money to start a new life and to get out of London. John does this and Lucy is sad to lose Henry, but excited about the chance of having a real life. Before she can leave Hyde appears and gets into bed with her. Instead of being after sex it is death he is after and he kills her after he confesses that he and Henry are close. She is found and her body is taken away. Jekyll and Hyde finally have a war for his body and Henry sets fire to the lab and it seems like Jekyll has finally won and is ready to get married. At the ceremony before the vows are exchanged Henry collapses and Hyde appears. He kills one of the patrons and grabs Emma. Emma knows Henry is in there and pleads for him to come out. He does for a moment and John pulls his sword on him. Henry begs of him to stab him and release him from is hell, but he will not. Instead Henry grabs the sword and stabs himself. The End.

The cast comes out for their bows and then The Hass talks to the crowd and thanks them and mentions Baywatch a few times and even Knight Rider by saying he came a long way from the beach and the talking car. The audience made his dreams come true and he isn't leaving and then he leaves.

Review

Thrawn - It's a long way from the beach! I can't believe he said that twice at the end of the show and once in the trailer...even he mocks on himself. It's a long way from Phantom of the Opera too. Think how memorable that play is and how unforgettable the music is. Jekyll is the polar opposite. This play is hard to take, tough to understand and impossible to believe. It must be viewed in small doses to save your sanity. I couldn't fathom sitting through it live for 2+ hours.

Sheep - I was flabbergasted and delighted all at once that he did say that. He is an enigma. It couldn't have ended on a better note (no pun intended). The play itself was only allowable in small doses it's true. But Hass as the star is a once in a life time thing. You could really tell he was loving it and himself. I kinda feel sorry for him now.

Thrawn - Hass is so out of his league here as the soap opera star who surrounded himself by professionals. The women totally overshadow him because they are true Broadway people. They tear up the songs as he limps through them. Coleen Sexton as Lucy was especially impressive since she was only 22 years old at the time and looks like she is twice that. Must've been a bit freaky to be a love interest for The Hass who is over 30 years older. I still can't imagine little wiry dork Sebastian Skid Row Bach playing the role though...

Sheep - The thought of Sebastian Bach doing this makes my skin crawl. As strange as Hass is, I would have liked to have been there in the front row watching him. Strange fascination. He was outdone by the others, but at least he had his chance to do what he always wanted to.

Thrawn - Imagine the poor bastard that had to lay half naked on the table playing Henry's father and have Hass hold his hand and fret over him. Yuck, whatever he is paid for his unknown role isn't enough.

Sheep - Ah, the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd...no, wait, that's the circus. Hard to tell the difference.

Thrawn - The budget seems very small since all the action takes place on one stage that never moves and has a red floor. Instead there are three tracks going both ways where the furniture is tracked in and out. Even when Henry goes from his upstairs to his basement he doesn't move. The wall goes away and is replaced by a lab. This makes it seem really cheap and would've been cooler to have some actual movement all around then people just exiting by walking in front of the set. I found all of that extremely disappointing.

Sheep - Since I wasn't taking this seriously at all, it didn't bother me. I really wish there had been more behind the scenes parts on the DVD so I could have seen him getting ready for this. I expected it to be cheesy and it was. Kinda like a glorified high school production or something...

Thrawn - They never come out and really say if the burlesque house where Lucy works is also a whorehouse, but I'm lead to believe it was. So has Henry been unfaithful? Certainly he has as Hyde. Is that what they are going for? When someone does bad things it isn't really them?

Sheep - It is that dark side. I never figured why guys who are getting married go to stag parties anyway. Sowing those last few wild oats before they get the ball and chain, eh? If you believe that when someone does bad things, it isn't them, you are opening up a pandora's box of woe. It's like taking away the responsibility.

Thrawn - I never though it was possible to base a song around the word "facade", but somehow they managed to do it and do it again and again. We instantly hear why a song should NEVER be based around the word. At so many points when all the townspeople are shouting along to facade I have no idea what the words of the song are, plus I'm focused on them saying facade over and over again. This makes for some really forgettable songs, there is no singing along afterwards.

Sheep - It's like a nightmare..facade! Facade!! That was a horrible song. I certainly can't give any points for music in this show. Actually can't give many points for anything except the freakish fact that Hass is in it.

Thrawn - The most memorable/worst song is the "Murder Song" where they say murder at least 125 times in 5 minutes. I guess the plan was to focus around one word as a song in this mess. To sum up the play in one word you could just say "murder" and that would be enough. It works on many levels.

Sheep - I felt like I was being tortured. It was scary, but not in the fear way. Scary like why did they write his song and what were they thinking? Was Kimmer involved in this???

Thrawn - It takes long enough for the "change" to occur. Almost 55 minutes. What are they trying to be jaws or something!? This consists of Henry pulling out his hair pull and letting his hair fall in his face!? That's it! It is so sad and lame. I mean they have this fake hairpiece that pulls back his eyebrows a bit, but nothing spectacular. No makeup changes, color changes - nothing. They should've had some sort of clear distorting mask to put on to change his features somewhat. I would rather see a movie version where they could take the time to really make up the scary HasselFace and make him a real ghoul.

Sheep - That was sooo funny!!!! That was it, hair on his face?! So we are supposed to think his great transformation was hair on his face?? Hahahaha so funny. The fact that he has to pull out his hair pull to do it is even funnier. You can't possibly watch this and take it seriously. It was as if Baywatch did a fundraiser and it was to put on a play to raise money for homeless monkeys on the beach or something.

Thrawn - So Hyde looks like a cross between Hass and Brandon Lee. This leads to play down a more ridiculous path because he really just looks like himself, so it is impossible to believe that all the people who know him wouldn't recognize him as Hyde. It's like 'I love Lucy' when she would put a wig on and Ricky wouldn't recognize him.

Sheep - It was just like the old Lucy/Desi show where she would put on a black wig to trick Ricky and he didn't know it was her. Right.

Thrawn - The HasselHighlight has to be the duet between Jekyll and Hyde. As Jekyll the light is warm and he sings to the left and as Hyde the light is dark and he sings to the right with hair in his face. This is the final battle for control, yet it isn't. No one truly wins. It is very funny to see this, but it solves nothing. I would've liked to have seen more of a tortured struggle - wrenching of hands, ripping of clothes. That might've cost too much to do though.

Sheep - NO no no! This was the ultimate funny thing and perfect for Hass to perform. It was all his old roles coming to fruition in one number. Perfectly funny and ridiculous all at once. I loved it absolutely loved it.

Thrawn - The middle half to two thirds of the play is concerned with Hyde going off and killing the all the snooty people who denied Henry a chance to continue his work. Never once does there seem to be any witnesses or police investigation of any sort. No deduction of motive as to why they are all killed. Every one thinks Henry is going downhill, but not one person fingers him as the murderer or suspects him. Some sort of inkling of the police closing in on him would've been appropriate.

Sheep - How about the fact that he is utterly dissolving as the man they used to know? Clue here people? It's just silly that they don't know it's him. Everyone is worried about him and his odd behavior and suddenly there are a bunch of murders of the people who reject him and no one knows. But then they don't recognize him only because he has hair in his face.

Thrawn - One of the strangest scenes involves a Singin' in the Rain style number involving the supporting cast all dancing and strolling around with umbrellas. As always the song and lyrics are beyond forgettable. How ironic that a musical is totally bland when it comes to the music. I couldn't tell you the name or lyrics of anything here. It is more memorable for the visual aspect.

Sheep - I keep trying to remember a song but I can't. The best I can come up with when I think of this play is a song that was in Les Mis. Maybe that's because I am miserable when I think of it.

Thrawn - The motive of Hyde to kill Lucy is unclear. Was he doing it to spite Henry? This is odd since Hyde killed all of Henry's nemesis's. Why didn't he kill Emma then? He sort of tried to, but she talked him out of it. Was that the underlying message? If you don't try to reach out to strangers they won't snap out of it? Who knows...?

Sheep - I wondered why he killed her as well. It didn't make any sense to me (as if the rest did). His dark side was too powerful to control it? He gave her the money and she was ready to go...he suddenly lurks out of the dark and stabs her over and again? After that long song she sang about a new life (hey, I remembered one, but I can't hear the melody in my head at all.)

Thrawn - I was really disappointed at the ending. Where was the HasselSoliquey? There needed to be some sort of denouement, some kind of wrap up. Instead he is just stabbed and that is it. Did he die? Did he live happily ever after? What was learned? The experiment was a failure? Something about the nature of good and evil and how all people can have the evil inside them, but not all act on it, sometimes some people do, sometimes they never do needed to be said. SOMETHING! It seemed to just so abruptly. Couldn't he have just stopped taking the medication? If not, why not?

Sheep - Like a bad Baywatch episode, there are so many unanswered questions. To just stab himself and that's it was lame. There should have been some idea of what it all meant. Seems like his experiment was a total failure on many levels and everyone died. Great.

Thrawn - The curtain call at the end is the best part where he speaks to the crowd and says he has come a long way from the beach and the talking car to finally realize his dream! His dream is to ruin a popular musical? He thanks the crowd for helping him and that if they liked it to tell a friend as he was staying there for a long time. Or at least until the play closed early because he didn't put asses in seats. Just because Baywatch was shown all over the world doesn't mean anyone wants to pay to see The Hass.

Sheep - Well, it was wonderful to se him do this. I really enjoyed the fact that he mentioned the old shows. I would have loved to have seen him in person. Call me a fan of the hairy man.

Final Rating

Thrawn - 1/10 - As a whole this play has terrible songs and story, the actors are competent, but it is a jumbled mess, too crowded and overlapping. 8/10 - As a comedy festival for HasselMockery it is priceless - more so than all the best Baywatch and Knight Rider moments combined.

Sheep - 10/10 - I can't even think of it as a play even though it was. Hass doing it is a dream come true. All those funny wonderful awful faces and his voice... Hahahahahahaha.