[On Stage] 17 Years Since the 2004 Premiere: Jekyll and Hyde Portraying the Two Faces of Humanity in Korea...

Expressing Human Inner Self as It Is: 'Good and Evil', 'Reason and Unreason'
Why Hong Kwang-ho's Passionate Performance Makes Him 'Hong Jekyll'

Actor Hong Kwang-ho, who played the roles of Jekyll and Hyde in the musical 'Jekyll & Hyde'.

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] You can never escape me, absolutely not / You are just an illusion in the mirror / You exist within until the end / Absolutely not, you are just a nightmare to escape.

This is part of the lyrics from the musical Jekyll & Hyde’s number “The Confrontation.” The highlight of the performance comes in the latter half when Hong Kwang-ho alternates between playing Jekyll and Hyde while singing this song. As Jekyll, his firm and confident operatic voice fills the auditorium. When he becomes Hyde, his vocal range shifts 180 degrees to a distinctive harsh tone reminiscent of a black metal band vocalist. Watching him change his voice dozens of times over the 3 minutes and 29 seconds of the song to express the duality of human good and evil reveals why he has been loved under the title “Hong Jekyll” for 13 years.

The original work of the musical Jekyll & Hyde is the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by British author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850?1894). This novel is praised for exploring the unconscious desires within humans before Sigmund Freud (1856?1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, did. The novel was published 13 years before Freud’s book The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), which established the concept of the unconscious. To this day, it continues to be endlessly reinterpreted across genres such as musicals, films, and dramas.

The musical was produced by world-renowned composer Frank Wildhorn and director Steve Cuden, premiering on Broadway on April 28, 1997. In Korea, it debuted in 2004 and has been a hit for 17 years. Among musicals performed at Blue Square (1,760 seats) in Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, over the past decade, Jekyll & Hyde (2014) attracted the largest audience. That year, over 242,000 people attended.

Actor Hong Kwang-ho playing Henry Jekyll in the musical 'Jekyll & Hyde'.

The story is set in London in 1888. Henry Jekyll, a skilled doctor and scientist, develops a medicine to treat his father, who suffers from schizophrenia. Believing the cause of the illness lies in the evil within human nature, he embarks on research to separate good and evil. When clinical trials become impossible due to opposition from powerful figures around him, Jekyll injects the medicine into his own body. This leads to the birth of the dual personalities Jekyll and Hyde, and the plot intensifies.

The theme is simple and clear. It deals with human duality through dichotomies such as “reason and emotion,” “conscious and unconscious,” and “good and evil.” According to French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926?1984) in his book History of Madness, in modern times Western Europeans treated madness and the mad as subjects for treatment, isolation, or as villains, often imprisoning or violently suppressing them. The term schizophrenia, which Jekyll’s father suffers from, was named in the late 19th century when the original work was written. At that time, anyone who deviated even slightly from the category defined as “normal” was often stigmatized as schizophrenic.

This era is represented by the protagonist Jekyll. Jekyll tries to completely remove evil from the human body and objectify it, but instead becomes a villain overwhelmed by madness. His attempt to separate the two actually amplifies the madness, creating the monster “Hyde,” who mercilessly takes others’ lives. Hyde is a metaphorical existence representing human nature where “good” alone cannot exist, and the violence of modern Western society that has distinguished “normal” and “abnormal” by the standards of reason and rationality.

Musical 'Jekyll and Hyde' performance scene.

On social networking services (SNS), many posts mention having watched this Jekyll & Hyde performance two or three times already. Some share experiences of attending every season. This is because each performance features new casting, actor combinations, and stage setups, making each viewing feel fresh. This is the reason it has been able to sustain popularity throughout its ninth season. The long performance period, continuing until May next year, is divided into first and second casting phases. In the first casting phase, Shin Sung-rok joined as Jekyll and Hyde for the first time. Original member Ryu Jung-han also returned after six years.

The stage is designed to clearly highlight the play’s message. It is designed with contrasts between left and right, up and down, front and back. Jekyll’s laboratory is set with a 6-meter-high set filled with about 1,800 graduated cylinders. Victorian-era costumes, the thunder sound effect when Jekyll appears in Lucy (Ivy)’s room, and the ever-changing lighting add to the visual enjoyment.