L’Effet Hyde

In a bid to give his dark and depraved side free rein, the good Dr. Jeckyll discovers a substance that will split his meek and erudite self from his instinctive and brutal self. From then on, he lives a double life as each of his alter egos lives its true nature to the fullest. Those close to him watch… and worry.

L’Effet Hyde is based on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Written in 1886, this fantastic tale—harbinger of modern psychology—forcefully expresses the soul’s duality. L’Effet Hyde makes this chemical thriller its own and tries to expose the meteorological manifestations of the unconscious.

The creative process
Long-time collaborators Marcelle Hudon and Francis Monty from Théâtre de la Pire Espèce combine their favourite theatrical media (masks, puppets and shadow theatre) with the power of words and live music to evoke the mystery and the strangeness of this Victorian-era fable. The varying theatrical approaches and levels thus created work together to illustrate the characters’ different levels of consciousness: reality, dream state, memory, fabulation…

“We really enjoy conflating the ethical issues raised by these characters with those raised by the original Jekyll and Hyde. We also love playing with the notion that any of us might go off the deep end because of social pressure.”

Marcelle Hudon

A Théâtre de la Pire Espèce and Marcelle Hudon coproduction