Gary McNair’s adaptation of the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for the opening play in Reading Rep’s 10th anniversary season at its elegant new home appears to have returned to the source and tells the story through the eyes of a lawyer friend of Jekyll, Gabriel Utterson who seeks to unravel the mystery of a succession of horrific brutal attacks in the streets around his home. It’s a simple and bold device but succeeds because they have been fortunate to secure the wonderful Audrey Brisson to play Utterson and all the characters he meets.
Brisson is an extraordinary actress with an expressive face, sparkling eyes and a physical presence that grabs your attention and does not let go. She was stunning in the musical Amelie at the Watermill Newbury and in the West End and has just completed an excellent run in Theatre Royal Bath’s brilliant production of Into the Woods but here she is alone on stage for the seventy-minute run time and prowls the raised platform engaging the audience with her looks, pauses and characterisations. Utterson gradually reveals the story but as he says, “we all already know” the truth about Jekyll’s experiments on himself, so the interest is generated through explaining the lawyer’s discoveries and the piecing together of the evidence through the characters he meets. It begins with Jekyll’s change of will in favour of Mr Hyde without explanation and the truth begins to dawn on Utterson when Sir Danvers Carew, MP is murdered.
