THEATREWEEK by Anthony Chase
Buffalo, New York
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Jekyll & Hyde

The Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse musical, Jekyll & Hyde, has finally come to Buffalo. It had toured just about everywhere else previous to its Broadway incarnation, and had changed radically along the way. On tour, it's changed again.

The show, "conceived for the stage by Steve Cuden and Frank Wildhorn," is a Broadway hit by sheer force of will. Its creators would never say die, despite constant critical drubbing, and now, in this era of the corporate musical, J&H is cut from that cloth of mass consumption. It is a pop hit.

To say that the show is unwieldy and ballad heavy, to say that the pace seldom alters as the evening lurches through its paces is to miss the point of Jekyll & Hyde. We are in the realm of spectacle, big voices, and sensation. On those counts, J&H delivers.

The tour that has come to Buffalo boasts an undeniably superior cast, headed by Chuck Wagner in the title role(s). Mr. Wagner will be familiar to Western New Yorkers as Toronto's Beast, in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. He sings and acts the double role brilliantly, giving his characters their appropriate overdoses of sympathy and horror.

Becca Ayers belts her way into the hearts of the audience as Lucy, the inevitable whore with a heart of gold. "Bring on the Men" is restored to the score for the tour, and she seizes the opportunity to lift the show with one of the evening's few uptempo numbers.

In this evening of dueling divas, Kelli O'Hara performs the role of Emma Carew, Jekyll's betrothed, most beautifully.

That James Clow, a superb actor with an impressive list of credits---including all those performances of Company on Broadway that Boyd Gaines missed---should play the secondary role of Utterson, Jekyll's friend, is a testimony to the excellence of this cast.

Given the right attitude, J&H is great fun. Do not expect great dramatic structure: do not even expect Robert Louis Stevenson. Go for a few great songs, some great performances, and an evening's diversion.