Never has the word murder sounded more upbeat.
On a recent Wednesday night, the cast of Wolfbane Productions’ latest, “Jekyll & Hyde The Musical,” is rehearsing the show’s longest, biggest number: a tune called “Murder, Murder,” which tells of the evil Mr. Hyde’s killing spree.
“That’s four in the last two days,” sings one cast member as everyone moves around the stage in carefully choreographed moves. “This killer has fancy ways.”
It’s just one of a score of songs that made the show so appealing to director Kate Woodley.
“The music is beautiful,” says Woodley, an Appomattox native. “Really haunting and powerful.”
The musical — which Wolfbane will stage at Heritage High School at 8 p.m. Aug. 6-8 and 13-15 and 4 p.m. Aug. 9 — is based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” a tale about a doctor whose experiments create a second personality that exposes his darkest side.
“Most musicals are bright and happy,” says Dustin Williams, also of Appomattox and Wolfbane’s executive director. “This one is scary and bloody.”
In the play, Jekyll starts experimenting with a potion that he thinks will restore his sick father to the great man he once was.
Unable to find a live test subject after being turned down by a local hospital’s board of governors and inspired by an encounter with a dancer at a seedy strip club, Jekyll takes the potion himself.
“He finds out she’s a really beautiful person,” despite her circumstances, Williams says. “He realizes there’s good and evil in everyone, and it must be in (himself), too.”
As they’ve studied the text, Williams and Woodley say they’re becoming more and more aware of its social commentary.
“It’s many things,” Woodley says. “It’s a parable warning us against repressing the parts of ourselves we think society doesn’t want to see. Being a parable, of course, it takes it to extremes.”
Williams, who admits he’s been “obsessed” with the play for several years, says it’s also about hypocrisy and the choices people make.
“It just struck a chord.”
When he told Woodley it would be Wolfbane’s second production — their first was last fall’s “Bat Boy The Musical” — she says she wasn’t surprised.
“I think that Wolfbane is really about asking its audience to explore its beliefs.”
If you're going
WHAT: Wolfbane Productions’ “Jekyll & Hyde The Musical”
WHEN: 8 p.m. Aug. 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15 and 4 p.m. Aug. 9
WHERE: Heritage High School, 3020 Wards Ferry Road
TICKETS: $13 for adults and $10 for children and seniors 60 and older; Can be purchased by visiting www.LynchburgTickets.com.
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