Dr Jekyll and/or Mr Hyde: The two versions of David Edgar’s stage adaptation

In 1991, the Royal Shakespeare Company staged David Edgar’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1885 novella, directed by Peter Wood, to a generally negative critical and commercial response. Five years later, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre produced Edgar’s revised version of the play, using the shorter title Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, to much more positive reviews, often from the same people. The striking thing about this radically different response is that, apart from a single element, the two scripts are very similar. They can therefore serve almost as a real-life scientific experiment, demonstrating the difference that a single change will make. This article will consider the various choices that an adaptor may make with this story and look at what the different responses to the two versions can tell us about the nature of this story, and possibly about horror and fantasy in general.