page_title: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1887 play)
section_title: Jekyll-Hyde transformation
hierarchical_section_title: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1887 play) / Dramatic analysis / Jekyll-Hyde transformation
caption_attribution_description: Richard Mansfield was best known for the dual role depicted in this double exposure: he starred in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in both New York and London. The play opened in New York in 1887 and London in 1888.
context_page_description: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a four-act play written by Thomas Russell Sullivan in collaboration with the actor Richard Mansfield. It is an adaptation of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, an 1886 novella by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. The story focuses on the respected London doctor Henry Jekyll and his involvement with Edward Hyde, a loathsome criminal. After Hyde murders the father of Jekyll's fiancée, Jekyll's friends discover that he and Jekyll are the same person; Jekyll has developed a potion that allows him to transform himself into Hyde and back again. When he runs out of the potion, he is trapped as Hyde and commits suicide before he can be arrested.
  After reading the novella, Mansfield was intrigued by the opportunity to play a dual role. He secured the right to adapt the story for the stage in the United States and the United Kingdom, and asked Sullivan to write the adaptation. The play debuted in Boston in May 1887, and a revised version opened on Broadway in September of that year. Critics acclaimed Mansfield's performance as the dual character. The play was popular in New York and on tour, and Mansfield was invited to bring it to London.
context_section_description: Although Mansfield's transformations between Jekyll and Hyde included lighting changes and makeup designed to appear different under colored filters, it was mainly accomplished by the actor's facial contortions and changes in posture and movement. As Hyde, Mansfield was hunched over with a grimacing face and claw-like hands; he spoke with a guttural voice and walked differently than he did as Jekyll. The effect was so dramatic that audiences and journalists speculated about how it was achieved. Theories included claims that Mansfield had an inflatable rubber prosthetic, that he applied chemicals, and that he had a mask hidden in a wig, which he pulled down to complete the change.
  In contrast to the novella, in which the physical transformation of Jekyll into Hyde is revealed near the end, most dramatic adaptations show it early in the play, because the audience is familiar with the story. As one of its first adapters, Sullivan worked in an environment where the transformation would still shock the audience, and he held the reveal until the third act.
caption: Mansfield's dual performance, captured in a double exposure by the photographer Henry Van der Weyde
exif: {}