(no subject)
I had a very awesome and theatrical weekend! I saw Promises, Promises on Broadway, and A Winter's Tale in Central Park (not to mention the first episodes of Gargoyles in batyatoon's guest room.)
I am not going to talk about any of those things right now.
Instead, I am going to tell you about a piece of lost theatrical glory: David Hasselhoff's star turn in Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical, which I cleverly talked rushin_doll and chlorrel into watching with me this weekend.
Now, I know some of you are already thinking: but where can I acquire this genius spectacle? But now you don't have to! Because I am going to give you the full Jekyll and Hyde experience here from your very own LJ.
(No need to thank me.)
Our story begins, as so many do, with The Hoff, a naked dude, and a guy looking disturbed.
Or, to actually set the scene: Jekyll, his BFF Utterson (the one who is wearing clothes) and Jekyll's Daddy Issues. In a shocking twist, Utterson does not get any characterization other than being Jekyll's BFF. On the other hand, he will eventually get a swordcane, which makes him approximately ten times awesomer than anyone else in this musical anyway.
The Hoff, meanwhile, spends most of the first scene acting against his naked dad. It's moderately uncomfortable. Jekyll's dad is insane, or comatose, OR BOTH; it's never quite clear, but either way it makes him VERY SAD and full of issues.
Jekyll drags his father offstage, and the rest of the cast then come out and sing passionately about how the Victorians were hypocrites.
No, that one guy is never going to get a shirt.
Throughout the course of this musical, by the way, I have really learned to appreciate the supporting cast. For some reason, I am especially inexplicably fond of this guy. He just clearly puts his all into his single solo line of song.
Anyway, back to the Hoff! He has trotted off to his hospital, where he is earnestly trying to convince the board of directors to support his very enlightened experiments . . . by donating him a mental patient to experiment on. "I can save many lives if you give me one man!" he explains.
Come on, isn't this a face you would trust with human experimentation? His plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity.
The Board of Directors express my feelings well.
"This isn't the Continent, you know!" exclaims General Whatsisface. Because human experimentation only happens in France. (Mostly I just wanted an excuse to screencap The Hat.)
Anyway, then Utterson comes along and, seduced by The Hoff's charms, gives the worst advice ever: "if you know you're right, you can't give up now!"
Utterson, you are going to be so sorry that you said that.
Anyway, now it's time to meet Love Interest #1! Her name is Emma, and most of her time onstage is spent protesting how she fully supports Jekyll in everything and does not want any more out of life than to help him achieve his dreams, which she understands are more important than she is. We decided Emma made a lot more sense if you assumed she was a spy for France who wanted to marry someone who would never, ever notice. I will therefore be presuming that this is a TRUE FACT for the rest of the recap.
Jekyll gets romantic!
Yes, Emma. This would be my reaction too.
This does not however stop her from cheerily giving her all to convince her dad that Jekyll is AWESOME husband material.
"Of course he'll ignore me when he gets buried in his mad scientist experiments! That's just what I need for my - um. I meant . . . Gandhi."
Meanwhile, Jekyll proves his awesome potential husband status by going with his pals to hang out at the Moulin Rouge.
Note the very period pleather boots. Not to mention the guy in the leotard.
Jekyll makes the acquaintance of a ~lady of the night~, because there's nothing like a good literalized virgin/whore dichotomy to really make your show a feminist masterpiece, and gives her his business card.
Lucy is bemused by the fact that a.) Jekyll has business cards and b.) that he brought them to the nightclub of dubious repute. So are we, Lucy. So are we.
Then Jekyll goes home and angsts in front of a giant picture of his father. In case we forgot about his daddy issues.
Then he rips off his jacket. As you do.
Okay, to be fair, he is ripping it off so he can inject himself with his secret chemical formula. Using yourself as a test subject: always a good life choice! First he has to stare at it for a while, though. And sing about it.
glimmering in red
like crimson bloodshed
shimmering in red
I think the fact that Frank Wildhorn thinks he can rhyme 'red' and 'red' legit makes me angrier than anything else in this show, which is saying something. But! I mean! THAT'S NOT HOW RHYMES WORK.
I cheer up quickly, though, because The Hoff makes hilarious stoned faces.
But then the bad trip sets in and he starts writhing around in agony for a while.
OH NO! It's Angelus Hyde! You can tell because now he has Evil Hair.
Also, a backdrop of go-go dancers.
Time passes! Jekyll's friends think he is acting kind of shady! Utterson drops by; Jekyll makes crazy-eyed pronouncements about WHAT TO DO if he should be MYSTERIOUSLY CALLED AWAY.
I told you you were going to regret encouraging him, dude.
The next person to stop by is Lucy, who needs Jekyll's medical help after an encounter with Hyde. She twirls around and goggles at Jekyll's nice place, showing her ankles in the process.
Somewhere, Marius Pontmercy is SCANDALIZED. Jekyll then dabs ineffectually at her back, because the actress is also contractually obligated to be in a corset as much as possible, while Lucy sings about all the kindness and gentleness she sees in his face.
Yes, this is the face she fell in love with.
And, I mean, how could anyone resist.
After Lucy leaves, Jekyll Hydes out -
- and rounds off his day by setting a bishop on fire.
The city of London reacts to this terrible murder by summoning a whole fleet of Mary Poppinses.
Jekyll reacts by putting on a purple pleather coat and buying more drugs.
Neither of these measures appears to be very successful, because Hyde then goes and kills a bunch more people. Our favorite murder: the one where Hyde kills one guy, then waits until everyone has rushed over to exclaim about it, and saunters over to kill someone else behind their backs.
Again, my attention is mostly on the ensemble throughout this whole scene.
For example, this woman gets the immortal line:
to kill outside St. Paul's
requires a lot of balls!
My favorite dude is back too:
"I know a way to net him!"
"How?"
"MURDER!"
I am pretty sure this dialogue does not make any kind of sense, in any way, but oh well, he is having fun.
Then, in case the five million repetitions of the word "MURDER!" had not gotten the point across, the ensemble all mime stabbing each other dramatically.
While - you guessed it - singing "MURDER!"
Anyway, we haven't seen Emma for a while! But now she's back. Reading some secret papers. Suspicious!
Jekyll surprises her reading his diary, and he gets pissed off, and then they sing a duet about how much she supports him and will always be there for him etc. etc. but we all know she is going to go sell his secrets to France, and serve him right.
Then Utterson comes by again, upset about Jekyll's seriously crazy new will leaving everything to some Hyde dude, and Jekyll explains that he needs Utterson to trust him! Just trust him!
Oh, and also buy some illegal drugs and have them delivered to Utterson's apartment.
Utterson objects to his new career as a drug dealer, but Jekyll impresses him with his reasonableness and sanity!
Then we get the ladies! Together! No, not talking together or having any kind of relationship. That would be silly. Just . . . sitting on opposite sides of the stage. Singing. Being VERY SUBTLY paralleled.
The film version makes it even more SUPER SUBTLE by split-screening them as they sing about the amazingness of Jekyll's eyes.
In case you forgot, once again, on a good day, that's these eyes:
And on a bad day, these eyes:
Truly, who CAN resist the Hoff?
There's a really uncomfortable scene here with Hyde and Lucy that we're going to skip because I don't like screencapping all the sketch, and then we're back to Jekyll's house, where Utterson is delivering the drugs and meets Hyde. Hyde decides to demonstrate what Jekyll's really been up to! Utterson demonstrates that he is awesome with a sword-cane.
Hyde: "What'sa matter? Afraid of SCIENCE?"
Utterson: "I can't believe that is actually a line of canon dialogue."
Jekyll comes back to himself and asks Utterson to deliver his Dear John letter to Lucy. Then he angsts and sets his chemistry station on fire. As you do.
The only reason I did not write 'AGONYYYY!' over top of this screencap is - well, it kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it?
Utterson delivers the letter and skedaddles, quite visibly having Had It Up To Here with doing five million awkward favors for Jekyll.
Lucy sings a touching song about leaving and starting over anew, but we all know that that's not going to happen because she's the sinful half of the virgin/whore dichotomy and therefore cannot be allowed a happy ending. Hyde kills her, it's awful and creepy (not in the good way) and we'll move on.
Yes, that IS Jekyll singing in front of a GIANT PICTURE OF HIS DAD. Why do you ask? (Even the portrait looks kind of embarrassed by the whole thing.)
And now. AND NOW. We come to the crowning glory of the whole thing: the song Confrontation, in which Jekyll/Hyde sing a duet, embodied by David Hasselhoff flinging his head back and forth like a crazed muppet in half a wig.
"NO, NEVER!"
"YES, FOREVER!"
- you know what, I can't even convey this in screencaps. If you've made it this far already, you've got three more minutes or so, right?
Just skip to 0:55 or so, when he starts doing the headflips, and go from there. I am telling you, it is CINEMATIC GOLD.
Of course, this is immediately followed by a happy wedding scene. Wherein EVERYONE gets to wear a shirt! It's a miracle!
Naturally, Jekyll goes crazy in the middle.
Dammit, Emma thinks, France is not going to be happy about this.
But she doesn't die because she's the pure love interest and not the fallen woman, dichotomy power of love etc., you get the point without me going on I think.
And then Jekyll rams himself to death on Utterson's swordcane.
Any innuendo in that sentence is on your own head.
Are we done? You'd think we'd be done! But no. WE'RE NOT DONE. Because THE HOFF is not done. After the curtain calls, he comes out to earnestly thank the audience for supporting him. He's COME A LONG WAY from the beach and the talking car! He's worked SO HARD to make it here! He's a REAL ACTOR now!
I would say "oh, bless," except then he concludes by saying "AND I'M NEVER GOING AWAY" and then I have to go hide and cry for a while.
I am not going to talk about any of those things right now.
Instead, I am going to tell you about a piece of lost theatrical glory: David Hasselhoff's star turn in Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical, which I cleverly talked rushin_doll and chlorrel into watching with me this weekend.
Now, I know some of you are already thinking: but where can I acquire this genius spectacle? But now you don't have to! Because I am going to give you the full Jekyll and Hyde experience here from your very own LJ.
(No need to thank me.)
Our story begins, as so many do, with The Hoff, a naked dude, and a guy looking disturbed.
Or, to actually set the scene: Jekyll, his BFF Utterson (the one who is wearing clothes) and Jekyll's Daddy Issues. In a shocking twist, Utterson does not get any characterization other than being Jekyll's BFF. On the other hand, he will eventually get a swordcane, which makes him approximately ten times awesomer than anyone else in this musical anyway.
The Hoff, meanwhile, spends most of the first scene acting against his naked dad. It's moderately uncomfortable. Jekyll's dad is insane, or comatose, OR BOTH; it's never quite clear, but either way it makes him VERY SAD and full of issues.
Jekyll drags his father offstage, and the rest of the cast then come out and sing passionately about how the Victorians were hypocrites.
No, that one guy is never going to get a shirt.
Throughout the course of this musical, by the way, I have really learned to appreciate the supporting cast. For some reason, I am especially inexplicably fond of this guy. He just clearly puts his all into his single solo line of song.
Anyway, back to the Hoff! He has trotted off to his hospital, where he is earnestly trying to convince the board of directors to support his very enlightened experiments . . . by donating him a mental patient to experiment on. "I can save many lives if you give me one man!" he explains.
Come on, isn't this a face you would trust with human experimentation? His plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity.
The Board of Directors express my feelings well.
"This isn't the Continent, you know!" exclaims General Whatsisface. Because human experimentation only happens in France. (Mostly I just wanted an excuse to screencap The Hat.)
Anyway, then Utterson comes along and, seduced by The Hoff's charms, gives the worst advice ever: "if you know you're right, you can't give up now!"
Utterson, you are going to be so sorry that you said that.
Anyway, now it's time to meet Love Interest #1! Her name is Emma, and most of her time onstage is spent protesting how she fully supports Jekyll in everything and does not want any more out of life than to help him achieve his dreams, which she understands are more important than she is. We decided Emma made a lot more sense if you assumed she was a spy for France who wanted to marry someone who would never, ever notice. I will therefore be presuming that this is a TRUE FACT for the rest of the recap.
Jekyll gets romantic!
Yes, Emma. This would be my reaction too.
This does not however stop her from cheerily giving her all to convince her dad that Jekyll is AWESOME husband material.
"Of course he'll ignore me when he gets buried in his mad scientist experiments! That's just what I need for my - um. I meant . . . Gandhi."
Meanwhile, Jekyll proves his awesome potential husband status by going with his pals to hang out at the Moulin Rouge.
Note the very period pleather boots. Not to mention the guy in the leotard.
Jekyll makes the acquaintance of a ~lady of the night~, because there's nothing like a good literalized virgin/whore dichotomy to really make your show a feminist masterpiece, and gives her his business card.
Lucy is bemused by the fact that a.) Jekyll has business cards and b.) that he brought them to the nightclub of dubious repute. So are we, Lucy. So are we.
Then Jekyll goes home and angsts in front of a giant picture of his father. In case we forgot about his daddy issues.
Then he rips off his jacket. As you do.
Okay, to be fair, he is ripping it off so he can inject himself with his secret chemical formula. Using yourself as a test subject: always a good life choice! First he has to stare at it for a while, though. And sing about it.
glimmering in red
like crimson bloodshed
shimmering in red
I think the fact that Frank Wildhorn thinks he can rhyme 'red' and 'red' legit makes me angrier than anything else in this show, which is saying something. But! I mean! THAT'S NOT HOW RHYMES WORK.
I cheer up quickly, though, because The Hoff makes hilarious stoned faces.
But then the bad trip sets in and he starts writhing around in agony for a while.
OH NO! It's Angelus Hyde! You can tell because now he has Evil Hair.
Also, a backdrop of go-go dancers.
Time passes! Jekyll's friends think he is acting kind of shady! Utterson drops by; Jekyll makes crazy-eyed pronouncements about WHAT TO DO if he should be MYSTERIOUSLY CALLED AWAY.
I told you you were going to regret encouraging him, dude.
The next person to stop by is Lucy, who needs Jekyll's medical help after an encounter with Hyde. She twirls around and goggles at Jekyll's nice place, showing her ankles in the process.
Somewhere, Marius Pontmercy is SCANDALIZED. Jekyll then dabs ineffectually at her back, because the actress is also contractually obligated to be in a corset as much as possible, while Lucy sings about all the kindness and gentleness she sees in his face.
Yes, this is the face she fell in love with.
And, I mean, how could anyone resist.
After Lucy leaves, Jekyll Hydes out -
- and rounds off his day by setting a bishop on fire.
The city of London reacts to this terrible murder by summoning a whole fleet of Mary Poppinses.
Jekyll reacts by putting on a purple pleather coat and buying more drugs.
Neither of these measures appears to be very successful, because Hyde then goes and kills a bunch more people. Our favorite murder: the one where Hyde kills one guy, then waits until everyone has rushed over to exclaim about it, and saunters over to kill someone else behind their backs.
Again, my attention is mostly on the ensemble throughout this whole scene.
For example, this woman gets the immortal line:
to kill outside St. Paul's
requires a lot of balls!
My favorite dude is back too:
"I know a way to net him!"
"How?"
"MURDER!"
I am pretty sure this dialogue does not make any kind of sense, in any way, but oh well, he is having fun.
Then, in case the five million repetitions of the word "MURDER!" had not gotten the point across, the ensemble all mime stabbing each other dramatically.
While - you guessed it - singing "MURDER!"
Anyway, we haven't seen Emma for a while! But now she's back. Reading some secret papers. Suspicious!
Jekyll surprises her reading his diary, and he gets pissed off, and then they sing a duet about how much she supports him and will always be there for him etc. etc. but we all know she is going to go sell his secrets to France, and serve him right.
Then Utterson comes by again, upset about Jekyll's seriously crazy new will leaving everything to some Hyde dude, and Jekyll explains that he needs Utterson to trust him! Just trust him!
Oh, and also buy some illegal drugs and have them delivered to Utterson's apartment.
Utterson objects to his new career as a drug dealer, but Jekyll impresses him with his reasonableness and sanity!
Then we get the ladies! Together! No, not talking together or having any kind of relationship. That would be silly. Just . . . sitting on opposite sides of the stage. Singing. Being VERY SUBTLY paralleled.
The film version makes it even more SUPER SUBTLE by split-screening them as they sing about the amazingness of Jekyll's eyes.
In case you forgot, once again, on a good day, that's these eyes:
And on a bad day, these eyes:
Truly, who CAN resist the Hoff?
There's a really uncomfortable scene here with Hyde and Lucy that we're going to skip because I don't like screencapping all the sketch, and then we're back to Jekyll's house, where Utterson is delivering the drugs and meets Hyde. Hyde decides to demonstrate what Jekyll's really been up to! Utterson demonstrates that he is awesome with a sword-cane.
Hyde: "What'sa matter? Afraid of SCIENCE?"
Utterson: "I can't believe that is actually a line of canon dialogue."
Jekyll comes back to himself and asks Utterson to deliver his Dear John letter to Lucy. Then he angsts and sets his chemistry station on fire. As you do.
The only reason I did not write 'AGONYYYY!' over top of this screencap is - well, it kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it?
Utterson delivers the letter and skedaddles, quite visibly having Had It Up To Here with doing five million awkward favors for Jekyll.
Lucy sings a touching song about leaving and starting over anew, but we all know that that's not going to happen because she's the sinful half of the virgin/whore dichotomy and therefore cannot be allowed a happy ending. Hyde kills her, it's awful and creepy (not in the good way) and we'll move on.
Yes, that IS Jekyll singing in front of a GIANT PICTURE OF HIS DAD. Why do you ask? (Even the portrait looks kind of embarrassed by the whole thing.)
And now. AND NOW. We come to the crowning glory of the whole thing: the song Confrontation, in which Jekyll/Hyde sing a duet, embodied by David Hasselhoff flinging his head back and forth like a crazed muppet in half a wig.
"NO, NEVER!"
"YES, FOREVER!"
- you know what, I can't even convey this in screencaps. If you've made it this far already, you've got three more minutes or so, right?
Click to viewJust skip to 0:55 or so, when he starts doing the headflips, and go from there. I am telling you, it is CINEMATIC GOLD.
Of course, this is immediately followed by a happy wedding scene. Wherein EVERYONE gets to wear a shirt! It's a miracle!
Naturally, Jekyll goes crazy in the middle.
Dammit, Emma thinks, France is not going to be happy about this.
But she doesn't die because she's the pure love interest and not the fallen woman, dichotomy power of love etc., you get the point without me going on I think.
And then Jekyll rams himself to death on Utterson's swordcane.
Any innuendo in that sentence is on your own head.
Are we done? You'd think we'd be done! But no. WE'RE NOT DONE. Because THE HOFF is not done. After the curtain calls, he comes out to earnestly thank the audience for supporting him. He's COME A LONG WAY from the beach and the talking car! He's worked SO HARD to make it here! He's a REAL ACTOR now!
I would say "oh, bless," except then he concludes by saying "AND I'M NEVER GOING AWAY" and then I have to go hide and cry for a while.