Jekyll and Hyde Ballet: An Atmospheric Visual That Improves Upon the Original Gothic Story

The lobby set up with items reflecting the Victorian details of the Jekyll and Hyde ballet.

This past weekend I went to see The Royal Winnipeg Ballet's adaption of Jekyll and Hyde. Gothic story + ballet is my jam! Just read my previous delight in seeing Giselle, and exploring its literary origins, for the first time.

Like an interesting game of artistic telephone, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet based its performance on the 2020 choreography by Val Caniparoli (of the San Francisco Ballet), who in turn created his interpretation from Robert Louis Stevenson’s nineteenth century short story, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I knew that the Victorian atmosphere would lend itself well to the stage, but wasn’t sure how the nesting doll narrative would translate to body language (tongue firmly in cheek). While Jekyll's torment takes on a physical representation in Hyde, the evil double only comes about from inner turmoil that was there to begin with. Ultimately, Stevenson's story is a psychological examination of his titular character's duality. 

But the story is no stranger to the stage.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was adapted for the theatre almost as soon as it gained popularity. The first stage adaptation appeared in Boston in 1887 and was already altering the story: adding women to a male-only character list and introducing the element of romance. I was curious to see what, if any, changes the ballet would bring to the original story. I knew from snippets on the RWB Instagram account that I could expect women on the stage and also that a dancer would be playing author Robert Louis Stevenson, reminding me of the Frankenstein adaptation I saw a few years ago.

Does the Jekyll and Hyde ballet differ from the short story?

In a nod to the nesting doll narrative, the ballet begins with an ill Robert Louis Stevenson receiving a dose of opium for his symptoms, taking the audience into his drug-induced creative process. Choreographer Caniparoli was inspired by biographical details here: similar to Mary Shelley, Stevenson claimed that his story of Jekyll and Hyde came to him in a dream. And yes: the author did suffer from tuberculosis-like symptoms, dying at the age of 44, and was taken care of by a woman named Alison Cunningham (although she was his nurse growing up).

Fun fact: the reference to Deacon Brodie (Act I, Scene V of the Jekyll and Hyde ballet) is a wink to an earlier work by Robert Louis Stevenson that also deals with the theme of the double life.

From this short introduction we are thrust into an intense number at an insane asylum. It is clear we’re already veering away from Stevenson’s original tale. In fact, the ballet deviates from the original Gothic story quite a bit, introducing two love interests, cutting out our major narrator in the story, lawyer Mr. Utterson, and increasing the roles of Dr. Lanyon and Sir Danvers Carew, and doing away with the physical deformities and small stature of Hyde. I know that is difficult when there I such a specific idea of a ballet body but the symbolism that Hyde grows the more he is able to act out is significant to the story.

However, the ballet keeps many of the key themes—good vs. evil, ambition—of Stevenson’s original story and, I think, improves upon the artistic experience. With ghoulish scenes, more deaths on stage, and explicit representation of queerness, the ballet turns up the volume on ideas that Stevenson only brushed up against in his tale.

My caveat here is that he was writing for Victorians who had much different opinions and tolerance levels for certain topics than today’s audiences. For example, the reference to Soho in the story and the tavern/prostitution in the ballet call to mind lower class/slum-like conditions in contrast to the 'in control' upper classes. Stevenson was writing The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the shadow of questions concerning god vs science, evolution, and more, stemming from Darwin's The Origin of the Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871). From these theories, other scholars of the era began to explore the idea of degeneration, reverting to a ‘simpler’ form, and how that might apply to criminals whose behaviour they believed to be biological. This is reflected in Hyde’s physical appearance as being drastically different than Jekyll’s in the original short story.

To further link these scientific theories and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, they would become linked with the one of the most notorious serial killers. When the theatre production of Jekyll and Hyde travelled to London, it’s run ended up being cancelled when Jack the Ripper began his killing spree in 1888. The actor who was playing Hyde was publicly considered a suspect because of his portrayal of the depraved fictional character on the stage. Given the theories that someone to ‘de-evolve’, it was an easy leap for Victorian audiences to make that if one could act so convincingly evil on stage it must surely be a reflection of the real inner workings of the individual.

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a nineteenth-century story that has provided a vehicle for countless new versions of the original text, each tailored to express new cultural anxieties" (Danahay 25).

While I won't give away the ballet’s ending, I will say that the narrative of the Jekyll and Hyde ballet does not conclude in the same way as the original 1886 story. However, the Greco Roman wrestling-inspired standoff between Jekyll and Hyde near the end of the ballet was intense and breathtaking to watch.

What I enjoyed about this experience, rereading Stevenson’s work a few days before seeing the Royal Winnipeg Ballet performance, is that both stand alone as entertaining pieces of art. I will admit: I enjoyed the ballet more than the story since it did away with some of the superfluous (to me) storytelling and became a more intense experience with period costumes, physical confrontation, and sumptuous sets.