TNT theatre presents:

DR JEKYLL & MR HYDEDraft 3

Adapted from the novel by Paul Stebbings and Phil Smith

(The set is a wall that can be turned to create an interior. Within it a Gothic door, above it a large Gothic window as if on a first floor. On a pedestal centre stage a glass of blue-ish liquid. Smoke swirls. A faceless Victorian gentleman in sombre clothes rises from the audience and ascends the stage , passing through the mist as music is sung and a spotlight picks out the glass).

MAN OF MYSTERY (MoM): Evil. (He lingers on the word, dips his finger in the glass and sensuously licks the liquid from his long finger nail).Where shall we find evil? In adultery? Fornication, drunkenness, thefts, petty hatreds, political assassinations, murders? No, these are words to describe the effect of evil – if we wish to FIND evil we must sharpen our nails, scratch and dig beneath our skin, where we will find not our soul – oh no not that fairy tale, but our selves!

(music).

Now, now you - yes, you! - vile and corrupt beauties whose eyes glitter in the dark. Who among you would dare to distil and extract that evil that is inside you and give it body, breath and being; and leave you pure and innocent as the babe you have forgotten? Who would take this drink and toss it down your throat if by so doing you would release from within yourself the horror of yourself?

(He moves towards the audience offering them the glass. Then even if someone reaches for the drink he laughs and throws the content of the glass high over the audience). It is here! The evil is amongst us! Not in one, but amongst us all. Innocence died when the first word formed in our infant brains. In its place – evil! O, evil is here. I sense it, I smell its stink, and I hear it! (Knocking starts). And now you will see it! O yes, it’s coming here – and you will know it because it bears your name, it stinks as you stink and howls to escape as the evil inside each and every one of you screams and screeches to be free! (Knocking and grunting, bestial scrapings and howls from behind the Gothic door). O, now you WANT to see it! Don’t you? Well, so be it... tonight we will show you a tale of evil manifested, a story that pathetically you pretend not to know. For it is your dirty linen washed in public, it is the evidence against you, it is your secret crimes and your darkest desires! It is the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. 1

Scene 2(The door crashes to the floor and a figure in clothes too large for him races into the audience climbing over seats in his furious advance – he pushes into an aisle and races on to crash out of the doors into the foyer as wild music plays – a bell tolls, smoke the streets of London a child – a puppet - plays in the street).

MoM: London! Three o'clock of a black winter morning and innocence exists here, innocence foolishly abroad at this hour, three o'clock of a black winter morning, running through a part of town where there is nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street, and all the folks asleep—street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church. Then! All at once, two figures: one a little man who is stumping along eastward at a ferocious speed, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who is running as hard as she is able down a cross street. Striding, running, as if everything in their previous lives has been a double journey to bring them to a single point! Well, sirs, madams, the two run – BANG! – right into one another; naturally enough at the corner; and then comes the horrible part of the thing; for the man tramples calmly over the child's body and leaves her screaming on the ground. Oh hellish to see. It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut, like some monster from the deep.

(This scene is played out, perhaps the Voice of the MoM blurs into a recording of his voice so that the soundscape of cobbles and screams can be louder and the narration becomes real time easier).

FATHER: That’s my child! You Monster, you beast, devil incarnate – (To audience) did yer see what he done?

MoM: Hang him! String ‘im up! Catch him and lynch im!

(The grumble and rumble of threat taken up by the sound track. Hyde, for it is of course him, tries to run back and forth but is met by the sounds and howls for his blood at every turn.)

MoM: Freeze!

(FATHER, HYDE and the child/puppet freeze in a tableau.)

MoM: Ladies and gentlemen, we are missing an essential element! For evil to triumph it is necessary that well-intentioned men act naively. And here is ours.

(UTTERSON is caught in a light, pacing up and down reading over a piece of paper in his hand.)

UTTERSON: No, no, no... something is wrong. I don’t like it! I don’t like it!

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MoM: Gabriel John Utterston, a London lawyer.

UTTERSON: I must act! (He folds the document and places it in his pocket and takes up his hat and scarf and heads for the street.)

MoM: The good-natured fool! He sees a shadow upon a man’s last will and testament and so sets off into a deeper darkness! Into the London streets!

(The tableau dissolves and UTTERSTON sees the fracas.)

UTTERSON: I saw that! (To Hyde:) Halt right where you are! (He grabs HYDE.) And you, (to FATHER and public), cease your hue and cry forthwith! The rogue is taken and shall now answer for his sins before the law and not a mob! This is England and not some dark and foul jungle; the law – and the law only - must prevail, lest we sink to the level of beasts such as you, Sir! Do you have a name to dishonour?

Voices: Lynch ‘im, trample ‘im. Cut is’ throat!

FATHER: (To UTT) An ‘oo are you to speak fancy words to save ‘is filthy neck?

UTTERSON: I am a lawyer, sir, my name is Jacob Utterston. And I know the Law, my dear man.

FATHERL An’ I know right from wrong and good from bad. An’ needs no lawyer to mix ‘em up! Now, ‘ang the beast and be done with ‘im! My girl. My poor little girl.

UTTERSON: She lives, see. There, child, there. Only by a miracle, she will recover. (To Hyde) And you, Sir, you may thank your gracious stars that she does live, else the Law would have you swinging from the gallows by Tuesday! Look at me, Sir, show me your face!

(Hyde turns and shows his distorted face – music a great sigh, a light picks out his face alone).

FATHER: Lord God preserve us!

UTTERSON: I incline to Cain's heresy. I let my brother go to the devil in his own way. But you, Sir, what shall I do with you? Throw you to the mob as would have your blood? Or do I hold them back, embodying as I do, the Law?

WOMEN’S VOICES SCREAM: Kill ‘im. Skin ‘im, kick im ter death!”

HYDE: (to UTT) Would you throw a gentleman, however sinful, tortured by forces that he cannot control, forces inside of himself. Would you throw such a gentleman to these... vermin, these... hissing rats! (He shouts the

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last words and the women howl outrage as the Father comforts his child and shoots a look of hate to HYDE).

UTTERSON: A Gentleman? Your misshapen attire suggests a thief, sir; one who preys upon Gentlemen!

HYDE: I am a gentleman. I have more fineness of feeling than all this rabble together will never know.

UTTERSON: Well a gentleman would sooner die than risk his reputation. I warn you, my seeming Sir, my Satan, that I can make such a scandal out of this, as should make your name stink from one end of London to the other. If you have any friends or any credit, I promise you shall lose them all.

HYDE: If you choose to make capital out of this accident, I am naturally helpless. No gentleman wishes to make a scene that stains his good name. This ragged mob will forget their moral outrage when gold touches their vulgar hands. Name your price.

UTTERSON: One hundred pounds sterling. For the child’s family. Not for these... ‘good people’ who have come to vent their rage at your consummate evil!

HYDE: It shall be done.

FATHER: (Who has been listening). Yer might of killed ‘er.

HYDE: But I did not.

UTTERSON: Take his bond. Call off your… people. Your voice will calm them, your compensation releases us all from this dark episode, - let us draw a line under it, right here – for darkness falling upon one man falls upon us all; for we are brothers. (Looks to Hyde and then to the audience/mob.) Even if some of us are as dark as Cain.

FATHER: An’ my baby girl’s gold?

HYDE: At this hour of the night it is not possible to procure...

FATHER: Dunt yer dare trick me! I may be poor but yer smart folks think that means stoopid and that I am not, I am not a rich man’s fool! Damn your eyes! (Howls from mob).

UTTERSON: Stop that!!

HYDE: (Hand on UTT’s arm.) Wait, sir. (To FATHER:) I will fetch you a cheque straightaway, and draw on it for one hundred pounds when the banks open tomorrow. Good? Now, come with me, for we are by a house where my credit is... secure. It is but here - across this very street.

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UTTERSON: Where the blood of an innocent child stains your name forever.

HYDE: Look into yourself, Lawyer, and you will find me. (A great howling of wind and all shiver).

FATHER: Fetch me money an’ if yer slip off we’ll burn your ‘ouse down.

HYDE: I am a man of my word. (He goes in, wind on the street).

FATHER: Yer let ‘im off. We’ll never see ‘im agin.

UTTERSON: No, I believe, however, horrid, he is a gentleman..

FATHER: An’ Satan is a prince.

UTTERSON: Aye, I fear you are right fellow (he is losing his faith). We struggle to believe in goodness. I too. Goodness is in your face child. But have I ever seen goodness in the face of a man?

FATHER: It’s in the bible, Sir.

UTTERSON: Ah, well, that is a place I have long forgotten.

(A bell tolls the hour – doom like as fog swirls and Hyde emerges).

HYDE: (In dressing gown). Take it. One hundred pounds. It is drawn on the Royal bank of Coutts, the Strand.

UTTERSON: The name. The name: How can you be Dr Jekyll? He is my friend? Have you blackmailed him, have you murdered him! (Throwing himself on Hyde – he has lost control).

FATHER: Back, Sir, back!

HYDE: Take it, take it. I am Mr Hyde, Dr Jekyll is my good, my good… protector. (Pushing Utterston away he races into the darkness).

UTTERSON: Come back, come back!

SCENE 3

MoM: But the past never comes back - except to haunt us! And what do we mean by that? A “haunting”? For there are no ghosts, no white sheeted phantoms running through castles and catacombs. And yet still we are haunted. Haunted by our own deep and dark desires. You, Sir, you name. yes you who sit smiling so smugly in the comfort of your complacency. If you could do anything you wished without any fear of punishment, what would you do? Tell me? You are ashamed? Frightened? Frightened of what – you are frightened of yourself. It is you who haunts yourself. Come now, 5

whisper in my ear, I promise to keep your dark little secret locked in my head. What outrage do you wish to commit? What horror would you give free reign? (Bends over) Ah no no no! Let it not be! *(Name)’s secret desire is so vile, so shocking that even I pale with horror. Ho, Sir, sir, ho. You don’t look that type!! Well! Your secret is safe with me, your foul desire is locked up here (taps skull). So, my lovelies, let your imaginations run riot. And wonder if (Name)’s dark desire is but a mirror or pale echo of your own. Don’t look so prim, Madame. I do not believe that your face is anything but a mask. I have a sixth sense and I sense your secret and you disgust me. Not for your sin, but for the foul smell of hypocrisy. Unlike (name) for he is as perfumed as rose, with sharp thorns eh? Now see Utterston – there’s a man who hides his desires under heavy stones, where they cry out to him. His response: lay on another stone! But still they cry out to him. Look at him! Exhausted by his night of terror and retribution. He flops down upon his chair and reaches for the bottle he does not desire. Gin. Mr Utterston has a weakness for fine wine, a passion for vintage Bordeaux that rolls around his palate and softens his senses. (Utterston has entered his apartment and takes a drink). Mr Utterston enjoys fine wine so he drinks cheap Gin to punish himself! Mr Utterston enjoys the theatre so he never attends a performance. Mr Utterston finishes his gin with sharp intake of breath as the hard liquor hits his soft stomach, (all acted out before audience). But just as Mr Utterston wishes to end his day and lock his bureau, just as he begins to close the dusty book of inscrutable English Law a terrible thought takes root in his weary brain. And the root burst into life:

UTTERSON: The Will, great God in Heaven, the last Will and testament! No, it cannot be!! No, no!!

MOM: (He searches in his pockets and finally produces the will.) The will.

UTTERSON: In case of the death of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., all his possessions to pass into the hands of his friend and benefactor but that in case of Dr. Jekyll's disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months," the said friend should step into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free from any burthen or obligation assume all his possessions and monies. The name of the benefactor and friend is – (He turns over a page.)

MOM: Mr Hyde!

UTTERSON: No, no it cannot be, it must not be!

MOM: It is.

UTTERSON: The devil incarnate. It is he.

(Music – Utterstone falls to his knees and prays).

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UTTERSON: Oh Lord, guide me now. What am I to do? I am a lawyer sworn to the secrecy that protects every client and respects the right of a man to give what he chooses to whom he chooses when he submits to death..

(UTT is lit only by a candle now, creating a pool of light – behind him at his window appears the face of Hyde).

UTTERSON: But Dr Jekyll was my friend, o yes, we argued over science, and once or twice there has been some... minor troubles that have required a lawyer’s assistance, for he accepts no limit to the range of human talents and experiences, no respecter of gods or men for he is as one consumed by science and I have heard him speak, in unguarded and secret, moments, of the goodness he may do if he abandons all moral restraint. I fear for him. I had thought this will eccentric, but now I fear it hides disgrace. For what could cause so noble and intelligent a man as Dr Jekyll to sign away all that he owns to so monstrous a …so demon like…so inhuman a creature as My Edward Hyde? What dreadful secret? Tell me, guide me, how shall I bring light where I see nothing but the darkness. I have known confusion in the presence of this strange creature but that was all he was until now, now, I have him! It was already bad enough when the name was but a name. It is worse now it begins to form a shape and gather a history; and out of the shifting, insubstantial mists that had so long baffled my eye, there now leaps up the sudden, definite picture of a fiend of Hell. (The shadow of Hyde grows across the stage)Guide me, answer me Lord. Just this once make known to me what the actions of a good man must be. (Pause – wind howls and the shadow passes). Nothing. Silence. We are alone on this little planet with no guide but our own poor self. (He rises) Come, Mr Utterston, I must to Dr Jekyll. I must persuade him to destroy this will and confound the devil.

MoM: Through lamplit streets walked our lawyer, his cane rattling on the cobble stones, his mind sweeping back to the foul night he saw a grown man trample a poor girl without a single moment of regret or remorse on his twisted face. At last he arrives at the door of Dr Jekyll.

(UTT knocks and all he hears is the barking of a large dog.).

UTTERSON: Let me, I say, let me in! I must speak to Dr Jekyll! In the name of God open this door damn your eyes!

(Above the stage in a large Gothic window we see Hyde struggling with man).

VOICE OF HYDE: Stay away from the door, fool!

(UTT Has not seen the struggle but places his ear to the door – the dog now growling).

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UTTERSON: Open this door at once! (Now there is only laughter from within). I shall be back, I shall be back! (Then turning wearily from the door – stares out into the audience and speaks):What I feared was blackmail now enters the terrible domain of murder.

(Now the noise of the streets seems amplified – the clatter of wheels on cobbles stones, the wind, the neighing of a horse and a type of panting that accompanies the tolling of a bell – the panting grows mixed with a snarl. Utterston starts to pick up pace but now the sound is in front of him – he turns and it is behind him, it is clearly a large dog now but only a sound now a vision. Wherever he runs the hound follows until there is great howl and from the back of the auditorium a half beast half man races over the seats, into the stage and disappears into Dr Jekyll’s door).

(UTT goes back to his house and sits in a chair, greedily pouring himself a gin he falls asleep muttering “Blackmail and murder blackmail and murder.

MoM: Sleep, sleep, perchance to dream. For now the lawyers imagination is engaged, or rather enslaved; and as he tosses and turns in the gross darkness of the night and the curtained room before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be aware of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running and then these meet, and that human Juggernaut treads the child down and passed on regardless of her screams. The figure in these two phases haunts the lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the more swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamplighted city, and at every street-corner crush a child and leave her screaming.

(This is enacted out as UTT sleeps – the endless repetition of a screaming child – perhaps only Hyde is visible and the screams are recorded as part of a semi-musical nightmare texture he cries out and wakes himself – pulling himself together he goes to the door and murmurs: The police. The police!)

(The set is turned back into the outside UTT approaches the House, hiding himself behind a newspaper he spots Mr Hyde, limping across the stage. He carries a sack in his hands then slips inot the house of Dr Jekyll as if by a side door or maybe a hatch for delivering goods to the cellar. UTT strides to the door knocks and then stands back at last seeing the shadow of Mr Hyde at the window).

UTTERSON: Edward Hyde. Unless you allow me entry into my dear friend’s house I will call the police and have your door broken down. You have been warned. This will (waves will) is enough to throw more than legal suspicion on you as the author of Dr Jekyll’s disappearance. I give you to a count of ten. Ten. Nine, - (The door opens – it is the servant Poole).UTTERSON: Ah, my dear Poole!

POOLE: Mr Utterston, Sir,?8

UTTERSON: How relieved I am to set eyes upon you, is your master at home? Is your master..alive?POOLE: Which master would you mean, Sir?

HYDE’s Voice: Invite the gentleman in, Poole.

POOLE: (Suddenly rushing out to talk to Utterston). Dr Jekyll is..is..

UTTERSON: Is?

Poole: Not at home. He has been…

UTTERSON: Murdered?

POLE: Called away. I would like to inform you, Sir, that Dr Jekyll has been called away to visit a patient but that is not the case. He has been called to the pharmacist who has been searching for chemicals. It is man to whom I run on lesser errands for Dr Jekyll.

UTTERSON: Is his mind distracted, dear Pool? Is s wild pursuit of scientific half-truths and blasphemies affecting his judgement so that he hands over his very soul to the accursed Mr Hyde?

HYDE’s VOICE: Poole, Poole!

POOLE: Presently, Master. (Turns sheepishly to go but UTT grabs him by the collar)

UTTERSON: I saw Mr Hyde go in by the old dissecting-room door, Poole. that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"

POOLE: Right, Mr. Utterson, sir. Mr. Hyde has a key. UTTERSON: Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that young man, Poole

POOLE: Yes, sir, he do indeed. We have all orders to obey him. But we see very little of him on this side of the house; he mostly comes and goes by the laboratory.

UTTERSON: And the hound, Poole, what of the hound? Is it sleeping? Does it dog the footsteps of the accursed Mr Hyde?

POOLE: Hound, sir?

UTTERSON: Yes a gigantic black dog that terrorised me when I last attempted to gain entrance to this very house.

POOLE: There is not, nor ever has been, a dog in this house.9

UTTERSON: What!

POOLE: Dr Jekyll would not tolerate pets, Sir. The only animals in this house are caged for experiments. It disturbs me, Sir, at night, the vivisection - their squeals and child-like cries.

UTTERSON: I am going inside now and you must not stop me. (Pushes past Poole).

(The set turns and reveals HYDE sitting with his back to the audience – so we do not know who he is).

UTTERSON: Mr Hyde?

HYDE: Why do you pursue me? I have paid the child’s father for my…error. And yet you bang on this door at all hours, conspire with old Poole and generally reveal yourself as a man with more time on his empty hands than balanced thoughts in his empty head.

UTTERSON: I am an old friend of Dr. Jekyll's—Mr. Utterson of Gaunt Street—you must have heard my name. I am concerned for my old friend.

HYDE: You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home. We have only met at night in the street. How did you know me?

UTTERSON: Will you do me a favour?

HYDE: What shall it be?

UTTERSON: Will you let me see your face? Here in the fullness of daylight.

(Mr. Hyde appears to hesitate, and then, as if upon some sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair stare at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds.)

UTTERSON: Now I shall know you again, It may be useful.

HYDE: Yes, it is as well we have, met away from howling mobs and street scum.; and a propos, you should have my address (hands card) I reside in Soho.

UTTERSON: Good God! You , too, have been thinking of the will? You mean to know me to use me when –

HYDE: When what? When I have need of a lawyer to ensure that I receive what is mine by rights?

UTTERSON: The goods, property and wealth of Dr Jekyll. 10

HYDE: Upon -his decease.

UTTERSON: But not his murder, Hr Hyde, for then you would be chief suspect as sole beneficiary of the slaughtered man’s will.

HYDE: Your imagination clouds your judgement. Hardly appropriate for a dry man of law.

UTTERSON: I know you, Hyde, I see through you.

HYDE: How do you know me?

UTTERSON: We have common friends.

HYDE: Common friends? (echoes Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely) Who are they?

UTTERSON: Jekyll, for instance.

HYDE: (Passionate) He never told you! He never told you anything about me! (with a flush of anger) I did not think you were such a liar!

UTTERSON: Come, that is not fitting language.

(HYDE snarls aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment, with extraordinary quickness, he unlocks the door and disappears into the laboratory).

UTTERSON: Poole, I shall be leaving.

POOLE: Yes, Sir, I shall fetch your hat and cane. Sir, sir a word.

UTTERSON: By all means.

POOLE: This letter, it was left for you. I have hidden it from Hyde.

UTTERSON: Thank you, Poole. I shall not forget you.

POOLE: I am mightily troubled ,Sir. I am tortured by dreams that shake me nightly.

UTTERSON: In that you are not alone.

POOLE: No, sir, correcting you: here I am utterly alone. (Turns to leave, then is stopped in his track by . a sudden squeaking, high pitch noises of terror).

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UTTERSON: What in God’s name…?

POOLE: Mr Hyde is in the laboratory. It is the cry of rats, sir.(Jumps with fear looking towards door that Hyde went through and then hurries away).

(UTT walks away and the lights change – under the glare of the lamp post he takes a pull of gin from his hip flask and opens the letter).

UTTERSON: I know this handwriting – it is Jekyll’s (tears at letter). At last at last, heaven be praised. (Quotes): Must reassure you that I am in the best of health and have attained a clarity of mind that transcends mere science. (Reads ahead to himself) And beg the pleasure of your company at my house, tomorrow, the 1st of November. Your affectionate and sometimes remiss friend Henry Jekyll. It will be out, the mystery of Mr Hyde and his devilish hold over Dr Jekyll will out!

SCENE FOURSONG:Secrets secrets, a shilling for your secret,Secrets secrets a penny for your thoughtsCan you Sir your darkest thought be bought?Or your deepest mys-try be had for free?Whispered to some priest who can plainly seeWhat a devil lies under your fine skinWhat a devil of a mess you find yourself in

Secrets secrets, a shilling for your secret,Secrets secrets a penny for your thoughtsDid any eyes see you pull that whoreDid any eyes see you leave her doorDid any eyes see you pack that pipeDid your opium eyes give you a frightAnd send you back to hide in the dark night

Where your:

Secrets, secrets are safe as they can beYour nasty little secret’s safe with me! Secrets, secrets, a shilling for your secret,Secrets, secrets a penny for your thoughtsFor we don’t judge youFor we don’t hate youWe are all in the same damn boatSo ram this down your stinking throat12

Secrets, secrets we are our own secretsIf we all told the truth, the whole truth: Strewth! You’d see the horrid fact that all we needIs gluttony and lust and endless greed.That’s the secret, secret as clear as it can beThe nasty human secret is safe with….no one.

MoM: The Devil has all the best tunes. That’s an idiom you idiot…ah but I ‘ear you say there is no Devil, Satan’s just a story to frighten kids and grannies. But Satan lives and breathes, not there (points down) not there (points up) but where – come on, you know (moves finger slowly and points to his own chest). But who looks inside themselves? Who looks in the mirror with an eye like a scalpel? Who journeys here? (places hands on his skull). One. One of us. The one and only Dr Henry Jekyll.

UTTERSON: (Being shown in by Poole) Ah Poole, I am delighted to see your kind face again.

POOLE: Mutual, Sir, a mutual pleasure. Dr Jekyll has been not in the brightest of humour and I hope your presence will cheer him as much as it does me this dark November day.

UTTERSON: Ah, so he is here? Good! It is indeed a day as foul as night. Now shall I wait here?

POOLE: Dr Jekyll is in his laboratory and assures me he will greet you as soon as he has scrubbed his hands of the chemicals that create such an overpowering and distressing odour in the house.

UTTERSON: I had noticed the smell.

POOLE: Stink would be a more accurate word, Sir. If I may take your cane? (POOLE takes UTT’s hat and cane and exits – UTT Paces to and fro – from behind the laboratory door comes a weeping, a sobbing as if a human frame were wracked with grief).

UTTERSON: (Moves uncertainly toward the laboratory door). Henry, Henry Jekyll? (pause). My dear friend….my dear, dear friend…(the sobbing is now shaking the house). Henry…Henry…

(Then suddenly the crying ceases – alarmed UTT knocks on the door – Poole appears).

UTTERSON: The key, Poole, where is the laboratory key? I fear the worst.

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POOLE: There are only two keys, one is the possession of Dr Jekyll and one…

UTTERSON: In the keeping of that damnable Mr Hyde!

(Suddenly the laboratory door swings open and there is Dr Jekyll, smiling and normal).JEKYLL: My dear Utterston, what a pleasure it is to set eyes upon. Give me your hand. I have I think washed the chemicals from my own (smells hand before offering it to UTT, beaming).

UTTERSON: I am delighted to see you…Dr Jekyll. (They shake hands).

JEK: A bottle of the best claret, Poole.

UTTERSON: I …er ..I no longer -

JEK: You would prefer not to be tempted to indulge in fine wine. Well, then I am your devil and you will drink of the forbidden fruit; for I see that your eye sparkles even as your brow furrows. Now sit down, dear fellow. It is too long since we met on anything other than professional business.

UTTERSON: The will. I am so distressed by the document, I -

JEK: Hush, hush – there (Poole serves glasses of wine) a toast, to friendship, the most constant and truest state in the whole world. In the face of friendship love is mere infatuation, wouldn’t you agree? You old bachelor you! (Nudges Utterston in his ribs and forces a smile from him). Cheers!

UTTERSON: Cheers! (He drinks the wine, tossing it back as if it were fire water. POOLE goes to replenish his glass UTT indicates he does not want any more. Poole obeys and JEK takes the bottle, smiles and pours the wine into Utt’s glass so he cannot refuse his host).

UTTERSON: How is your work? Do you practice medicine still?

JEK: My scientific work consumes me. I have no time for the sick. It is the healthy man I wish to anatomise.

UTTERSON: A great loss to the sick and poor indeed. You were always such a charitable man.JEK: Yes, yes, but the sick are always with us. There is more than one way in which we may be good.

UTTERSON: (Losing patience) I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll. You know that will of yours?

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JEK: My poor Utterson, you are unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you were by a mere document!

UTTERSON: You know I never approved of it.

JEK: My last will and testament? Yes, certainly, I know that, You have told me so.

UTTERSON: Well, I tell you so again. I have been learning something of young Hyde.

JEK: (Losing his bright humour he seems to collapse) I do not care to hear more. This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop.

UTTERSON: What I heard was abominable what I have seen is disgusting and morally repulsive!.

JEK: (Manic) It can make no change. You do not understand my position! I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange—a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by talking.

UTTERSON: Jekyll, you know me: I am a man to be trusted. Tell me your secrets in confidence; and I make no doubt I can get you out of it.

JEK: My good Utterson, this is very good of you, this is downright good of you, and I cannot find words to thank you in. I believe you fully; I would trust you before any man alive, ay, before myself, if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn't what you fancy; it is not so bad as that; and just to put your good heart at rest, I will tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde. I give you my hand upon that; and I thank you again and again; and I will just add one little word, Utterson, this is a private matter, and I beg of you to let it sleep. Sleep.

UTTERSON: (Pause) I have no doubt you are perfectly right

JEK: Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for the last time I hope, there is one point I should like you to understand. I have really a very great interest in poor Hyde. I know you have seen him; he told me so; and I fear he was rude, foolish. But, I do sincerely take a great, a very great interest in that young man; and if I am taken away, Utterson, I wish you to promise me that you will get his rights for him. I think you would, if you knew all; and it would be a weight off my mind if you would promise.

UTTERSON: I can't pretend that I shall ever like him.

JEK: (Pleading) I don't ask that, (laying his hand upon the other's arm) I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him for my sake, when I am no longer…(gulps) here.15

UTT : (With a deep sigh): Well, I promise. (A bell tolls),

JEK: Six o’clock. You must excuse me, I have an experiment which requires my hourly presence. Good night dear friend.

UTTERSON: May God go with you.

JEK: Oh I doubt that, dear Utterson, I doubt that very much.

(Utterson takes his cane and hat from Poole and exits, the set turns and Hyde appears at the top window nodding his head).

SCENE FIVE:

MoM: A man, sitting on a chair in the dark can do no evil; for evil is not a thing but an act. Now Mr Hyde is walking out on a winter’s night. And at a window high above the street, on a moonlit night full of that strange charm and glow than induces romance, a ladies’ maid is seated at her window singing.(He dresses himself in a shawl and cap and sits at her window where he sings falsetto):

If you were the only boy in the world And I was the only girl etc

MAID: (Sees Hyde) Oh that’s young Hyde. If he were the only boy in the world I’d not kiss ‘im!

A garden of Eden just for two and nothing at all to doI would say such beautiful things to youYou would do such wonderful things to meIf I were the only girl in the worldAnd you were the only –

(During this song we see Hyde meeting a well dressed man with white hair and they begin to talk – but suddenly, without warning or provocation Hyde clubs the older man to the ground with his heavy walking stick, raining blows on him and indeed kicking him – all the time the song continues as the MAID is lost in “her” reverie but as she reaches the end of the song she turns and sees the horror and screams as Hyde flees, leaving behind the broken end of his heavy cane).

MAID: MURDER! (faints)

(MoM Then throws off his shawl and cap and places a policeman’s helmet on his head. (He pulls the body offstage and returns to the stage with the broken cane and a letter.

16

POLICEMAN: Mr Utterson, Sir, Mr Utterson, Sir!

UTTERSON: (off) What time of the night do you call this?

POLICEMAN: I would not trouble you, Sir, but I must report a matter of the utmost urgency that relates to the murder of your client, the honourable Sir Danvers Carew!

UTTERSON: Great god in heaven! (Emerging in dressing gown).

POLICEMAN: I do not need to trouble you for long, Sir, but the dead man was carrying a letter addressed to your good self.

UTTERSON: (Tearing it open) Yes, yes, it is… o, nothing but a mere bill of sale.

POLICEMAN: I am sorry to bother you, Sir.

UTTERSON: I wish I could be of more assistance. But what is that under your arm?

POLICEMAN: This? The murder weapon, Sir, or that is the half of it, broken as it was against the poor victim’s skull. The old man was clubbed to death.

(The police man swings the broken club and Utterson staggers as if felled by a blow – a great sound echoes across the stage).

POLICEMAN: Are you well. Sir?

UTTERSON: Was a Mr Hyde in any way connected to this bloody crime?

POLICE: Good lord, how did you know that? Why, yes, he was indeed, sir. A witness spotted the villain and now the hue and cry is out for him. Alas, he seems to have vanished.

UTTERSON: Show me that cane. (Mutters) I knew it, I knew it.

POLICE: (His suspicions aroused) Knew what , Sir?

UTTERSON: O, er... that we might believe we have tamed man with our so called civilisation but the beast, the beast still roams the streets of London. Wild!

17

POLICEMAN: I wouldn’t know about that. Sir, I am trusting we arrest a man and hang him for this. I think I’ll be on my way now. Good night, Sir. …Unless you have anything you wish to tell me?

UTTERSON: What? No! Nothing... I... nothing. I will come to you if I have anything to …nothing. Good night to you, officer. God be with you.

POLICEMAN: I like to think he is. (Tips hat and exits).

UTT (alone) Am I a liar? Tell me. Am I a liar? That cane was mine, my gift, my gift... to Dr Henry Jekyll! (He pulls on his coat and races across the stage to knock at the door). Poole, Poole, open up, open up in the name of heaven!

POOLE (appears): Dr Jekyll is in his laboratory, Sir. He must not be disturbed. I cannot let you into this house.

UTTERSON: I must speak to him. It is imperative!

POOLE: He has given orders that he must never be disturbed in that room, sir! I have never seen the inside of it myself.

UTTERSON: This is a matter of life and death.

POOLE: Very well. Seeing as it’s you. Then my conscience is clear, Sir.

UTTERSON: Would that I could say the same.

(The set turns and UTT is inside the laboratory – glass bottles hang on the wall a table is covered with papers and a strange bottle of blue liquid seen at the start of the play. JEKYLL has his head down on the table. He does not rise to meet his visitor, but holds out a cold hand and bids him welcome in a changed voice).

JEK: Ah Utterson, my one and only friend. I might have guessed that you would find a way in!

UTTERSON: You have heard the news?

JEK: (shudders) They were crying it in the square.

UTTERSON: Dear old Danvers Carew - clubbed to death with a cane, Jekyll. A cane!

JEK: So?

UTTERSON: Your cane, Jekyll, your cane, the one I gave to you.

18

JEK: Have you... have you…?

UTTERSON: No, no one. Of course not. I have foolishly protected you as both my client and my friend but I can no longer do so if..

JEK: If what? If what!

UTTERSON: If you been mad enough to hide the fellow. You know who i mean!

JEK: Utterson, please, please, liston to me. I swear this to God, I swear I will never set eyes on him again. I bind my honour to you that I am done with him in this world. Do you understand? It is all at an end now. Finished. Over. And indeed he does not want my help; he no longer... requires... me. You don’t believe me? That is because you do not know him as I do; as only I can do. Believe me, he is safe, he is quite safe; mark my words, he will never more be heard of.UTTERSON: You seem pretty sure of him, and for your sake, I hope you may be right. If it ever came to a trial, your name will appear, you will be dragged down, deep down Jekyll. You’ll never rise again...

JEK: I am quite sure of him, my friend! I have grounds for certainty; ones that I cannot share with you – or any one. But there is one thing on which you may advise me. I have—I have received a letter; and I am at a loss whether I should show it to the police. I should like to leave it in your hands. I trust you, dear Utterson; you would judge wisely, I am sure; I have so great a trust in you. I am resting my world upon you.

UTTERSON: This letter; you fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detection, arrest and execution?

JEK: No, no, we have passed that point now. No, I cannot say that I care one jot what becomes of Hyde; I am quite done with him. No, I am thinking of my own character, which this hateful business has rather exposed.

UTTERSON: Hmm, well, frankly Jekyll I am surprised by your selfishness... and yet I am relieved by it!! Well, let me see the letter

JEK: It’s from the fellow of course. (As UTT reads the letter he desperately paraphrases it) Er... He says he is unworthy of my many generosities, which he has failed to repay. He begs me to labour under no alarm for his safety, he says he will never be caught and he assures me he has made provision for the most perfect escape. Ah – he ends by swearing that he will never see me nor compromise me ever again on this dark earth.

UTTERSON: (Nodding) Signed Edward Hyde. Have you the envelope?

19

JEK: (Almost too fast for he is lying) I burned it, before I thought what I was about.But it bore no postmark. The note was handed in.

UTTERSON: Shall I keep this? I’ll sleep upon it, while I consider what should be done with it.

JEK: Of course. I wish you to judge for me entirely, I have lost confidence in myself.

UTTERSON: (Takes the letter.) Well, I shall consider our positions. And now one thing more. (He takes the will from his pocket.) It was Hyde who dictated the terms in this will, how he would inherit everything, house, possessions and a quarter of a million pounds sterling should you vanish from this world? (JEK seems seized with a qualm of faintness: he shuts his mouth tight and nods). Yes? I knew it! He meant to murder you. The brute! You, dear friend, have had a narrow escape.

JEK: I have had something more, I have had a lesson—O God, Utterson, what a lesson I have had! ( And he covers his face for a moment with his hands). Leave me now. Leave me alone. Alone. I must be alone, completely, wholly, alone. (UTT nods and leaves as the set turns to hide JEK).

UTTERSON: (TO Poole who appears) By the by, man, the letter handed in to-day: what was the messenger like?

POOLE: Letter, sir? No letters today. No one has called at the house all day; with the exception of yourself.

UTTERSON: I see. And there was no post?

POOLE: Circulars but no letters, Sir.

(UTT looks back to the laboratory.)

UTTERSON: Think, man! A letter... there was a letter?

POOLE: I would remember a letter!! ...sir.

UTTERSON: Yes, yes. Of course.... good man. (He looks back again to the laboratory.) Something is rotten here, Poole, something is rotten to its core.

(Light shifts to window where Jekyll stands – he throws open the window and shouts to the night. Wind rises. Far off a bell tolls.)

20

JEKYLL: Stars, hide your fires! Cover me in darkness, hide my deeds! O, I have travelled on a great and secret journey to understand the root of evil. And how shall we understand evil if we do not grasp, isolate and then amputate? But who will judge me? No one if not myself can judge!! For no one before me has been both scientist and specimen! Mathematician and equation! Accused and executioner!! Who will punish me now? No one has the authority but myself! And that punishment? It is my own certain death.

POOLE: Sir, sir, come away from the window!it

JEK: (Pauses a moment and looks below, then closes the window). I am become nothing - a zero. But in my journey – why, Poole, there still lies hope! There has never been such progress! And in that lies my duty to science and so to humanity. There is the greater good! It is not over. I am, but it cannot be!! (Closes window and shaking his head descends).

POOLE: Sir, sir, will you be taking hot chocolate before you retire for the night?

JEK: (Laughs at him hysterically) No, no, no, no, Poole, I am going to my laboratory. There is much to do.

POOLE: But, begging your pardon, Doctor. It is so late.

JEK: No, Poole, I realise now – even now – especially now – that it is never too late. The good book – our bible - tells us that it is never too late to make good our ways, to put our house in order; even at the last, the last of lasts ... we can make good. And that is what I intend to do. (Exits to laboratory; slams the door and the clang echoes through the house.)

(Light to UTT sitting on a chair reading the letter that Jekyll have him).

UTTERSON: (Reading) “My dear benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom I have for so long unworthily repaid for a thousand generosities, you need labour under no alarm for my safety, as I have means of a most perfect escape . Yours unto the very end, Edward Hyde.” Ah – it is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Why a letter? A very formal means for two men so close... so... close... no? No, no... that cannot be... Wait, there’s a way... the signature on the will... (he reaches into his jacket and produces the will and opens it up. He holds the will and the letter up together. He throws himself on his knees and spreads out the two letters, perhaps taking out a magnifying glass or bringing a candle to the letters.) O no! Catastrophe! (Stands and backs away.) This is the end!! The same hand!!! (He returns to the two documents.) A singular resemblance; why the handwriting is almost identical: differently sloped, one to the right the other to the left – fool! - but the same. (He stands - music). The horror, oh the horror. So that is what is beneath it all!!!! Henry Jekyll is playing forger for a murderer!

21

MoM: And his blood ran cold. But does your blood run cold? Or does the very sound of murder catch your attention and titillate your interest? Tell me, (name) Do you enjoy a thriller? A murder and mystery, eh! A horror story perhaps? A little gore in your grand guignol? Does your heart beat a little faster when you think of the murder of that poor old man hunted through the foggy streets, filthy alleys and foul cesspits of crime-filled London? Of course it does! We all enjoy a good murder. Murder, Murder – read all about it!

Newsboy: Special edition. Shocking murder of an Member of Parliament!

ALL: (sing – the cast as masked newsboys)

Murder, murder, read all about it!Have you heard a storyOf a murder that occurredWithout pricking up your ears?Did you ever shed a tear?O no, my little sweeties,How you rubbed your hands with gleeAnd repeated bloody detailsAs you sipped your breakfast tea!O pass me the paperThere's a story I must tellOf whores who had their throats slitA sailor did the deed.He butchered their warm bodiesAnd tossed them in a pitThen he fled to MadagascarThey will never find his ship!How my heart beats with excitement, as I read the bloody tale,And I love my boring life that once had seemed so stale:Living out the killings in my daily Daily Mail.In my mind I raise my butter knifeSlash kind old men to deathSee the blood and spittle on his rasping, dying breath.Then I spread my marmaladeAnd bless my cosy life:"Pass the tea and murder" I murmur to my wife.Murder, murder, read all about it!Murder, murder, flog it and tout it!You'll never feel as safe tucked warmly in your bedAs when you read a story of the freshly butchered dead!

Mom: Standing as he removes his mask) If evil entertains us, how dare we call it wrong?

22

(One other actor having changed his mask and donned a police helmet blows his whistle and charges out through the audience).

MoM: The chase is on, but do they pursue a murderer or is it evil itself they seek? Perhaps they should arrest us all? Officer, what’s new?

POLICEMAN: The suspect, Mr Hyde, has vanished, sir. A man of few acquaintances - even the landlord of his lodgings has only seen him twice; no family to speak off; he has never been photographed; and the few who can describe him – why, their reports differ wildly. A regular mystery! Only on one point, do they agree, sir – and this is very strange, – every witness reports, in almost exactly the same terms, experiences of a haunting sense of terrifying and depraved evil hanging about this fugitive. (To audience.) perhaps someone here has felt the same? Anyone here know him or his whereabouts? I appeal to you to come forward now in the name of the greater good.

UTTERSON: I..I…have to – officer, I am obliged to inform you -

JEK: (Suddenly enters.) Ah, Utterson, how marvellous to see you. Will you take a stroll with me.

POLICE: (To UTT) I beg your pardon , Sir. You addressed me?

UTTERSON: Yes, yes... I wanted simply to wish you well, Officer. I think we all here would want to wish you every success in your business and may the bloody murderer be apprehended.

POL: Thank you, Sir. Much obliged to you for your public-spirited gesture! And a very good day to you. (Exits)

UTTERSON: But…And…. Wait... er... (dithers) ...to you too.

JEK: Ah, how crisp and fresh is the air today! A west wind, it quite dispels the fogs and vapours of this London. (Takes UTT by the arm, is he taking him away or is it friendship).

UTTERSON: How can you? You look as cheery as a spring day, Jekyll!

JEK: And so I am, I am indeed.

UTTERSON: You wish to promenade? Now?

JEK: My surgery is at five so a stroll towards Shoreditch would be as practical as it is invigorating.

UTTERSON: You surprise me, Jekyll... you mean to tell me you have returned to medical practice?

23

JEK: Only for the poor and needy, my dear friend. I have a sudden... passion for them. I work for their smiles since all too often their pockets are as empty as their hopes.

(They pass beggar and JEK drops a note into his hat. The beggar is amazed and runs off with his prize.)

UTTERSON: The world turns upside down! I will see you in church soon!

JEK: (While the words are banal, JEK suddenly turns ghoulishly sincere.) This Sunday, then? We may share a cup of chocolate afterwards.

UTTERSON: (Unnerved.) Chocolate?

JEK: (Turning on the charm.) Ah you would prefer a glass of vintage wine!

UTTERSON: (Relieved.) Indeed!

JEK: But you will settle for a cheap gin, I warrant. (They laugh. Light changes.)

UTTERSON: Ah the sun, see how it breaks over the river. It is a while since I saw it’s lustre, these dark days

JEK: And longer still since I felt its warm embrace. Come, friend, come, let us escape our musty chambers, the sun blesses us. Come! (They walk off arm in arm.) .

MoM: What’s up? Do you smell a rat? Happy ever after on its way? That’s not what you want, is it? Evreything wrapped up neatly and happily resolved? That’s not what happens in the real world let alone the world of pleasing fiction. You’d be a little disappointed if it didn’t all plunge back into misery again, eh? Have no fear, my dear little vampires, there will be fear!!! Blood will have blood, or…what’s the point? Because you lot want something horrible to happen, to enjoy something horrible, something truly horrible will happen - for what you desire down there (in the audience) will soon happen up here - as sure as eggs is eggs! Another idiom, you idiot. (popping back on) Oh - and as I have certain narrative function here we go: Some days later!

UTTERSON: (Whistling merrily, in his hat and with his cane he holds a bottle to the light). Chateaux Mouton Rothschild premier cru. I feel this is just the bottle to celebrate dear Jekyll’s return to the world. Yes, he may have sinned in trying to protect his….his…cursed heir. But who shall cast the first stone and say they have not sinned? And besides his sin is begot of misplaced kindness and atoned for by his charitable work among the poor and wretched. I am a lawyer not a judge. And I fear that I talk aloud to myself too much. (He walks to the door and knocks).

24

MoM: And Mr Utterston was not admitted. (This is repeated several times, as each time Utterston’s mood and demeanour changes until he is no longer whistling but breathing hard and battering at the door. Perhaps use flowers that progressively wilt and wither as he turns up each time?).

MoM: Nor was Dr Jekyll’s door opened the following day (repeat) Nor the next. (repeat etc) Nor the next day. Until…. (JEK appears haggard at the high window).

UTTERSON: What! JekylI! I trust you are better.

JEK:I am very low, Utterson, very low. It will not last long, thank God.

UTTERSON: You stay too much indoors. You should be out, whipping up the circulation like myself. Come, now; get your hat and take a good walk with me.JEK: You are very good. I should like to very much; but no, no, no, it is quite impossible; I dare not. But indeed, Utterson, I am very glad to see you; this is really a great pleasure; I would ask you inside but the place is really not fit. It is impossible to enter this place.

UTTERSON: (To himself) What in God’s name... he’s lying... or something’s up.... is he a prisoner? (Loud) Why then the best thing we can do is to stay down here and speak with you from where I stand.

JEK: Yes, yes, my dear friend, you see I – Aaaargh! Terror and despair freezes my blood! (Jekyll falls back from the window).

UTTERSON: A prisoner, the man is a veritable prisoner, but of whom? Pray to heaven it is of himself and not….Edward Hyde! Ah, Poole, Poole! (Poole has entered with a package, he looks grey and distraught).

POOLE: Do not ask me to allow you into the house, Sir. I am sworn to obedience. I must not bend again. It is his command.

UTTERSON: I respect the doctor’s wishes. I…What do you have there? The stench is vile.

POOLE: Chemicals, Sir, I am sent out for chemicals. I scour the pharmacies. But, however much I bring, it never seems to satisfy the Doctor.

JEK: (Voice) Poole, Poole, hurry man, hurry! The crisis approaches!!

25

POOLE: I must go. (Exiting, then stops, almost speaks, but decides against it.) No! I cannot say what sits in my head like a boil upon my brain. (Vanishes in the door).

MoM: We have reached the final chapter, my wicked friends. The last night. By which I mean the reckoning, the weighing up, the revelation and the... what? The moral? Is that all you really want? A moral to the story? To become good by watching a spectacle? To become a better person vicariously? Oh come on! Be Honest, people! You are here to satisfy your desire for... no, your lust for …(pause as he elicits a response) for what? For what do you lust? I can’t answer that question – for the answer lies inside each of your own dark hearts.

Scene(Night at Utterston’s – he sits reading a divine tome):

UTTERSON: Calvin teaches that Original sin is that corruption in the nature of every man, from the moment of his birth, whereby a man is very far gone from original goodness from his start, and by that nature is inclined to evil, and that continually.(sighs) Amen to that. (A knocking offtstage) Who is it at the door at this hour of the night? (He goes to “open” the door – a breathless POOLE stands at the door shaking his umbrella). Bless me, Poole, what brings you here? Is the doctor ill?

POOLE: Mr. Utterson, there is something terribly wrong.

UTTERSON: Tell me plainly.

POOLE: You know the doctor's ways, sir, and how he shuts himself up. Well, he's shut up again in the laboratory tonight; and I don't like it, sir—I wish I may die if I like it. Mr. Utterston, sir, I'm afraid.

UTTERSON: Quickly, my good man -What are you afraid of?"

POOLE: (not once looking the lawyer in the face). I can bear it no more!

UTTERSON: Try to tell me what it is.

POOLE: (hoarse) I think there's been foul play, crime, black crime.

UTTERSON: (Shaking Poole) What foul play? What does you mean man?

POOLE: I dare not tell you. Please, come with me and see for yourself? (Utterson says nothing and grabs his hat and cane and bundles Poole offstage with him).

(Storm, lightning. POOLE and UTT cross the stage in driving rain as set turns – there is a light in the upstairs window but no one is there – they

26

enter, the set turns to the inside. UTT knocks at the door to the laboratory. There is no answer.)

POOLE: I Fear the worst, Sir.

UTTERSON: Go and fetch me the police. And be sharp about it. I shall break down this door.

POOLE: Is that wise , Sir?

UTTERSON: It is the only thing to do! Now go!

(UTT Batters at the door, the storm outside rages. Until at last he breaks through and the set turns again to reveal the laboratory and in the midst the blue phial of liquid – as he advances towards it and takes it. Hyde leaps down behind him, soaked with rain and dishevelled).

HYDE: Give that to me! (Utterson gives a cry of terror and then backs off holding the phial).

UTTERSON: Why, why do you want this? What have you done with Dr Jekyll? Have you murdered him?

HYDE: (Almost strangled as if in inner torment) No, no...... worse!!! I have consumed him, I have enveloped him!

UTTERSON: Cannibal!! Ghoul!!! You shall hang for this!

HYDE: Death holds no fear for me, for us.

UTTERSON: Us, us? Don’t you dare speak of me in the same word as your evil self!!!!

HYDE: Hahaha, you!!!!

UTTERSON: Who is this “us” you talk of, then?

HYDE: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

UTTERSON: What nonsense do you utter! What do you mean?

HYDE: Fool, blindman, give me that potion, the last precious drop of that elixir, which (crying and weeping)... which I cannot reproduce despite my skills!

UTTERSON: Skills? What skills have you except those in murder and foul horror!27

HYDE: Give me that potion or else I shall dash you brains against the wall and then end my own tortured lives.

UTTERSON: Lives, what do you mean?

HYDE: Do not question me!! I warn you!! Do not torture me, I can take no more pain without lashing out like a wounded beast! Give it to me. (Grabs phial from terrified UTT). Haha! This is the last, the last of the last drops that…oh God that has forsaken me, my heart would now throw away what my soul will drink! I am torn, forever joined and forever torn!

UTTERSON: There you go again! Joined to what? Torn from what? You rave like the madman you are!

HYDE: I am not mad, I am driven, driven to this distraction, yes. And as for meaning, (he spits) what is meaning? (angry) You know nothing of meaning – only we have touched on meaning and know what a horror it is.

UTTERSON: We, we – who is this “we” you talk of, lunatic?! I’ll have no part in your vile beliefs!

HYDE: Hahahaha! So, let it be! The last precious drop of the potion which by my science, the science you mocked, I created, shall reveal to you the meaning. I’m not sure you want it! Arghh – my hands! Hyde’s hands would sooner kill you and smash the vial... (UTT cowers).

UTTERSON: God save me! Help police!

HYDE: (Struggles, lifting the poker with which the door was broken down and tempted to smash the vial and Utterson’s head and escape – he wrestles with himself and as thunder rolls and music builds he jerkily forces the potion down his throat and falls behind the laboratory table or medical screen and rises/emerges as Dr Jekyll in such a way that his arm is never out of sight and it is clear it is the same man).

UTTERSON: No, no, no, no! You are one and the same, you are Jekyll and you are .... you.. are..... no, no, no! Hyde! Great god, curse these eyes of mine that ever saw this sight! (Collapses. JEKYLL goes to him and cradles him in his arms).

JEK: Oh my dear friend, my one true friend, the only good I have ever known is that goodness you have inspired within my rotten soul.

UTTERSON: (Almost delirious, struggling to crawl away.) You’re Hyde, Hyde... inside, you’re Hyde. No, no... it was a trick!! You gave me a drug! Or it was a conjuring trick! Please tell me that....(spitting out fear and contempt) THAT’s not true!

28

JEK: Can you deny the evidence of your own eyes? The evidence, oh lawyer. The damning evidence that Hyde is of me, from me, is me and I am him! I found a chemical mix that would release him; a catalyst to bring him out of the soul’s shadows, to separate the evil from us mixed men... Or so I thought, for now I fear it was a chance impurity within that compound that effected my transformation and I cannot repeat the experiment. Again and again I re-run the experiment.... but no result.

UTTERSON: Then what do you have to fear, dear friend, Hyde is gone with the potion and its impurities! Forget him!

JEK: (Weeping now standing and tearing at his head).No, no! You don’t understand! The potion that produced Hyde, controls him too. Without it... o, my.... o.... he returns at will! His will, and my will too – for how can I fight him when I long to be him again? O, Utterston, I am changed... I long to sink into the sewer with him and to swim amongst the stink, the foulness and the complicated evil that lies barely buried, a feather’s width, beneath my skin!

UTTERSON: What, what? Hyde comes at will?

JEK: He shall come again, as surely as night follows day. In a few moments. In a day, in the hour! When he wants. And I shall be powerless – nay, obedient! - before him. (He picks up the empty phial and tries to empty a last drop into his mouth. Nothing.) The potion is exhausted - with it went my chance of escape from the darkness; now the evil, even now, bubbles up within me!

UTTERSON: Within us all…

JEK: Yes, yes, you see it! You are an enlightened man! (Embraces UTT.) And how could I as a scientist not reach for that which I glimpsed if it were true? How could I NOT have done it?

UTTERSON: (Pushing him away.) Even if an old man died for that truth, clubbed to death with my cane that I gave you! And a child trampled? And heavens knows what else!

JEK: (Despairing.) You are right! Of course, you’re right! (Gathering up his strength.) But what is right and what is true are not the same. I had to understand myself and through myself the truth about us all. I was obsessed – just as Galileo or Newton were! With every hour I was drawing steadily nearer to that truth and when I hit it, it was the shipwreck of my soul! What a jagged, ripping, tearing truth!! (He quietens down.) So here are my findings: that man is not truly one, but truly two, and in my own person, I learned to recognise this primitive duality of man; good and evil. I saw that, although their two natures struggle violently in the same

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consciousness, I was both – radically good and radically bad, but somehow, and with your occasional help, we rattled along. Then came a day-dream: If these two, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, why, life would be relieved of everything that is unbearable and hypocritical, secret and shameful; if I could take the evil out and leave the good part to lives its own true life! For is it not the curse of mankind that these incongruous sticks are thus bound together in one agonised being? These polar twins of good and evil grappling in continuous battle? How, then, are they to be torn apart? This laboratory table provided the answer. It was my salvation, but it was also my cross. For, I have come to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is not like some unfortunate birthmark or ugly wart to be burned off. This burden is bound for ever on man's shoulders, laced into his heart and loins, it is humanity and society itself! - and when the attempt is made to it cast it off, it rebounds as if on a spring! It returns on us with a most unfamiliar and terrifying pressure! But there’s more!!! For despite – perhaps by - creating a creature from myself, embodying all that is evil within me, I am now unable to cleanse myself of that evil or temptation! By growing from myself that poisonous weed, I have created a monster of my own evil, I am not purged, white and pure: I am compliant!! Compromised!! Utterly corrupt!!

UTTERSON: But why, why? If the evil is sucked out of you?

JEK: No, oh dear friend, even now you do not understand. I long to be Hyde!! The moment he was out of me I longed to have him back. Even now, I long to be Hyde despite – and they will come round again soon - the horrors of the transformation, the racking pangs, the grinding of my bones, the stretching of my skin and the swelling of my flesh, the rise of deadly nausea in my throat, and a horror of the spirit like the end of a world! All this is just the price I long to pay, a small admission fee of sensations. Utterston, old man, you have no idea – for when the transformation is complete, it’s so indescribably new and incredibly sweet. I feel younger, lighter, happier in body; and free! Such a heady recklessness I never felt before! And such a riot of sensual images running through my fancy – ho ho ho! – everything a man dare not address to himself is there described, the whole enterprise facilitated by the dissolution of all bonds of obligation and morality in exchange for perfect liberty. At the first breath of this new life, I knew myself instantly to be wicked, a shameless slave to my own original evil! Yes , Utterston, ... (He starts to spasm, not too strongly.) I have mastered myself. Like men before me... and it feels like ... vintage wine!!

UTTERSON: Stop, stop, this is blasphemy!! You build heaven out of Hell!

JEK: They are one! They are within me! Ah! Arghh! (He twists into a strange deformity.) He comes, he comes! Hyde is upon me, run Utterson, run my dear friend, or he will tear you to pieces!

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UTTERSON: Jekyll, Jekyll (weeping, embracing him) I cannot leave you to this doom. Surely there is something I can... show me the chemicals.... I can make a new compound....

JEK: (Caught between pushing UT away and desperate for comfort) Oh Hyde, you ape-like sprite! I feel you now!! Get away, Utterson! Or doom closes in on both of us; where Hyde dies I care not, for this is my true hour of death. Aargh! Away, Utterson, away! (But Utterson holds onto Jekyll in a daze of grief, they roll behind the table/screen and re-emerge - Utterson is now gripping Hyde).

UTTERSON: No. no! Jekyll! Je-kyll! Fight him! Fight him!

(Hyde throws him off, picks him up again and hurls him across the room, and again and again, then picks up the poker and raises it to strike Utterson but some inner turmoil causes him to throw the weapon aside and stagger back).

HYDE: I am Doctor Henry Jekyll!

(He races to throws himself from the window – a massive flash of lightning strikes him and he falls.)

FINAL SCENE:

(The set turns slowly and Hyde’s body is revealed on the ground where he has fallen to his death. His body smokes as if struck by lightning).

UTTERSON: (Weary and shaken) Jekyll? Is it you? Mister Hyde...? (He kneels by the body and turns it over. He stands and staggers back.) My sight is blasted by a prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan. (The Man of Mystery walks on and embraces Utterson, putting his arm around his shoulders. To MoM). Tell me, friend, for we have a mystery here and you are acquainted with mysteries... what is it before us? Help me, tell me, was this a good man?

MoM: O, how would I know, sir? Ask my masters.... (To audience) ...ask them.

BLACKOUT.

THE ENDcopyrightPaul Stebbings & Phil Smith 2013

tnttheatre1@gmail.com

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