Project Bible: Jekyll and Hyde
The project brief I was given during university was to take the story of Jekyll and Hyde and adapt it. Changing the characters and narrative however keeping the theme of duality. The characters had to be opposites and a script needed to be provided to help pitch the design bible. I was very passionate about this project as the original story of Jekyll and Hyde (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) is my favourite gothic literature and the adaptations throughout the years have become my favourite story trope. My version takes place on a ship during the spice trade over the Indian ocean. For this project I researched the costumes to ensure that it was historically accurate. I even researched the slang and dialect that was used at the time to make the characters more believable to the time period.
Narrative Adaption
I called this Adaptation of ‘Jekyll and Hyde’, ‘Sugar and Spice’ thanks to its innocent sounding tone. However, in the tone of this story, it has a different meaning. ‘Sugar’ is in reference to the name of the boat this story takes place on. The name ‘Saccharo’ means sugar in Latin. As for Spice, throughout the story the characters refer to the red powder substance as Spice. The words Sugar and Spice in themselves show duality as they can be seen as opposites.
My rendition of Jekyll and Hyde was based in the 18th century. A century before the original story of 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. Originally, I was going to base my interpretation of the story in the same era as the original with a steampunk twist, however I found that this was too close to the original book and all in all uninspired.
Basing my interpretation in the Georgian period allowed for freedom to explore the uniforms worn on trading ships. I have set my story on a trading ship that is owned by 'The East India Trading Company'. In the script, I made references to this by using Georgian era slang words in the vocabulary of the characters speech. However, I only had done this to an extent so this adaptation is easy to understand to modern audiences.
Jekyll is a surgeon that worked on the ship. Unfortunately, due to the time period, he would be known as Mr Jekyll as opposed to Dr Jekyll. In this era Doctors saw themselves as superior to what a surgeon specializes in. On each trading ship there is at least one surgeon on board as there is a high chance of injury, infection and/or illness.
As for Hyde, am taking influence of his design from uniforms worn by members of 'The East Indian Trading Company'. Along with this, he is wearing a broken Venetian mask. His rugged appearance is the result of a punishment used on ships called 'Keelhauling'. This is when a disobedient crewmember is dragged underneath the boat, scraped against barnacles and pulled up the other side of the ship. Men would normally die however I wanted to show his in human ability and his final transformation from Jekyll to Hyde.
My intention is to make the 'potion' into a spice that is traded and given to the ship from a mysterious unmarked land. Trading with a tribe that would use this herb to enhance their capabilities when hunting. Jekyll mixes this red powder with his tea in order to consume it. I was given permission by my lecturers to be able to make the transformation a ‘slow burn.’ Throughout the story there is multiple quick changes, between Jekyll and Hyde when the tea is consumed, however there isn’t a major transformation apart from personality and a costume change. The final transformation is when Hyde is caught and ‘Keelhauled’ for his crimes.
My interpretation of both Jekyll and Hyde have a prosthetic arm. For Jekyll, it is stationary and has a limp, metal bone-like structure that will either dangle at his side or be placed on his hip. Jekyll lost his arm due to a failed experiment with the red spice. He injected it into his arm to see how the chemical would react to the bloodstream as opposed to being ingested. Unfortunately, this resulted in the spice breaking down the cells in Jekyll’s arm. He was able to act quickly with his friend who is also a surgeon called Mr Langdon. They truncated the top of his arm and hacked the arm off before the disintegration could travel to his torso. This left Jekyll devastated. Langdon made a prop arm out of old porcelain cups and clockwork metals and remnants as a gift and to give Jekyll a sense of normality.
When Jekyll transforms into Hyde, the arm is magically movable thanks to the spice. However, because of the movement, the porcelain chips and breaks off, revealing the metal skeleton underneath. When Hyde turns back into Jekyll, he of course has no memory of what he does as Hyde. His prosthetic arm is broken, Mr Langdon fixes the arm multiple times. Firstly, thinking Jekyll is being careless but over time he becomes suspicious.
In this adaptation the character of Hyde kills members of the crew at night. The murders are brutal and animalistic. The scene that I have written for my script, consists of Hyde taking revenge on Jekyll’s behalf. Using a Cat o' nine tails to savagely kill a member of the crew who had previously beaten and whipped Jekyll as a punishment for being disobedient to a direct order. Of course, as this is Hyde, he goes over the top to the point of murder. In the entire act, his identity is concealed by a Venetian mask that Jekyll had kept in his office.
This was a mask that he picked up from Italy for his daughter at home. It was a little souvenir from his travels that he had hoped to pass on as a gift. Originally during planning stages, I was going to design a porcelain baby face for Hyde to wear so he is able to conceal his identity when he kills. I enjoyed the idea of mixing porcelain with human skin. During this time era, the tea trade was occurring and China crockery popularity was growing.
Both Jekyll and Hyde have references to porcelain in their designs to show duality. Jekyll has an intricately designed porcelain arm that is decorated with designs that you might find on teacups. Showing his care, gentle and precise precision as a surgeon. Not to mention how delicate his arm is and what Jekyll has to do in order to maintain its aesthetic design.
When it comes to Hyde's mask, it is also a delicate prop to protect. It conceals his identity and maintains a facade as shown by its permanent smile. A Venetian mask allows whoever the wearer is to be anyone from an Aristocrat to a Peasant, this is a metaphor to show that we all have someone like Hyde within us as Hyde represents pure evil. Not knowing who his counterpart is.
