Jekyll

A splendid version of the ultimate psychological thriller "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is on stage at the Spotlighters Theatre through Oct. 27.This excellent new adaptation by the show's producer, director and star, Mark Redfield, in collaboration with actor Stuart Voytilla, is faithful to the original Robert Louis Stevenson novel. The very sophisticated, intellectual work presents, as Stevenson intended, the fascinating tale of the good and evil warring within us in the form of a good, old-fashioned mystery.

Pasadena Theatre Company has found an excellent venue at Abundant Life Church in Glen Burnie for its current production of the Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse musical adaptation of "Jekyll & Hyde" — the tale of good and evil created by Robert Louis Stevenson in his 1886 novella. PTC president and "Jekyll" executive producer Sharon Steele said Abundant Life Church has partnered with them to present the show in a space that provides multiple staging levels. Assisting Steele is ALC pastor Nate Drye, who serves as producer with his team of church musicians, actors and technicians.

Convention says that most actors would rather be onstage than on-screen - you know, the smell of greasepaint, the roar of a live crowd, the thrill of getting an immediate response to your performance. But that's not Mark Redfield, a fixture on the local stage for much of the 1990s. Five years have passed since his last performance before a live audience; this summer, he completed his first movie, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, for which he wears the myriad hats of actor, director, set designer, co-producer and co-screenwriter.

The Theatre at AACC (formerly the Moonlight Troupers) recently tackled as its first production under its new name the Jeffrey Hatcher adaptation of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." This version features one actor playing respected physician Dr. Henry Jekyll, one actor playing chambermaid Elizabeth Jelkes and four actors (including one woman) playing the evil Edward Hyde. The production marked a first for me - I needed to attend a second performance. Familiarity with Spencer Tracy's classic 1941 film and the Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse's 1990 musical version could not have prepared me for Hatcher's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in just one sitting.

All-star film revues starring everyone from Clara Bow to Fay Wray. Bela Lugosi in a murder-mystery set inside a movie studio. Fredric March in his Oscar-winning turn as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." A short subject, underwritten by Chesterfield cigarettes, made to raise money for a tuberculosis sanitarium.Film lovers who make their way to Orpheum Cinema this week are in for a rare treat, as the tiny Fells Point movie house plays host to a festival of seldom-seen classics and first-rate Hollywood oddities.

Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a classic account of good vs. evil, and New Century Theater's spanking new theatrical adaptation is mostly to the good.This ambitious version -- scripted by Mark Redfield and Stuart Voytilla and being presented at the Spotlighters Theatre -- accentuates the melodrama of Stevenson's horror story. Most of the heightening springs from the addition of romantic subplots, a tactic also used in some of the many screen versions. Jekyll's lady (Johanna Cox)

Stephen Frears' "Mary Reilly" moves slowly but surely. It knows where it's going, and that's straight to the heart of horror.Everything in the film is dank and cold as a public urinal in a highway road stop in Massachusetts in November. Ostensibly a version of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," once memorably filmed with Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman against a backdrop of gaslit Victoriana, Frears makes it feel hardly English at all.This Doc Jekyll and his bad-boy-inside Hyde seem far more Germanic in temperament, something out of the seething unconscious of a culture that was to produce in short order both Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler.

GODALMING, England -- They called her Aunt Bumps, and she was the grand doyenne and genius of the modern English garden.Gertrude Jekyll was a quiet reformer. She took garden planning out of the formal drawing room and dropped it into the garden soil where it belonged, to paraphrase an old Raymond Chandler line.But she looked a most unlikely reformer, more like Queen Victoria than Rosa Luxemburg. She was a great expansive woman with plump blooming cheeks, full jowls, hair pulled back severely and weak eyes peeking through tiny oval spectacles.

Loretta and Andy Favret invited us to a cocktail party in their rented beachfront condo on St. Simons Island, Ga. They used to live in Maryland and now live in Delaware, just like my wife, Madeline, and me. Like them, we also rent a St. Simons condo in the winter, when Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island are bleak and lonely. All the other people at the party that afternoon were snowbirds -- retired folks from states with frigid winters who come south for a month or longer. St. Simons and the other nearby islands, known as the "Golden Isles" of Georgia, have become a regular winter destination for many in recent years, although the area is still primarily a spring and summer resort.

High school spring plays in Howard County Atholton - Seussical, March 6-8, 7 p.m.; March 9, 3 p.m. 410-313-7065. Centennial - West Side Story, April 2-4, 7 p.m.; April 5, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-313-2856. Chapelgate Christian Academy - Don't Drink the Water, March 15, 7 p.m. 410-442-5888 Glenelg Country School - Aesop's Foibles, Thursday and Friday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-531-8600. Hammond - Honk, March 6-7, 7 p.m.; March 8, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-313-7615. Howard - You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, March 27-29, 7 p.m. 410-313-2867.

High school spring plays in Howard County Atholton - Seussical, Thursday to March 8, 7 p.m.; March 9, 3 p.m. 410-313-7065. Centennial - West Side Story, April 2-4, 7 p.m.; April 5, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-313-285 6. Chapelgate Christian Academy - Don't Drink the Water, March 15, 7 p.m. 410-442-5888 Glenelg Country School - Aesop's Foibles, Thursday and Friday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-531-8600. Hammond - Honk, Thursday to March 7, 7 p.m.; March 8, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-313-7615.

High school spring plays in Howard County Atholton - Seussical, March 6-8, 7 p.m.; March 9, 3 p.m. 410-313-7065. Centennial - West Side Story, April 2-4, 7 p.m.; April 5, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-313-2856. Chapelgate Christian Academy - Don't Drink the Water, March 15, 7 p.m. 410-442-5888 Glenelg Country School - Aesop's Foibles, Thursday and Friday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-531-8600. Hammond - Honk, March 6-7, 7 p.m.; March 8, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-313-7615. Howard - You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, March 27-29, 7 p.m. 410-313-2867.

For its 58th season's annual musical, Colonial Players tackles the dark Victorian tale of good and evil, Jekyll & Hyde, with aplomb, thanks to an energetic cast and immensely clever staging. Director Craig Allen Mummey's actors can sing and dance - and even perform fight scenes fearlessly. His set, designed with help from Dick Whaley, forgoes computer-controlled staging for a U-shaped bench-like representational set fitted with disappearing platforms to instantly create Jekyll's laboratory, a hospital board room, an elegant home, a tawdry pub and the mean streets of London.

Loretta and Andy Favret invited us to a cocktail party in their rented beachfront condo on St. Simons Island, Ga. They used to live in Maryland and now live in Delaware, just like my wife, Madeline, and me. Like them, we also rent a St. Simons condo in the winter, when Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island are bleak and lonely. All the other people at the party that afternoon were snowbirds -- retired folks from states with frigid winters who come south for a month or longer. St. Simons and the other nearby islands, known as the "Golden Isles" of Georgia, have become a regular winter destination for many in recent years, although the area is still primarily a spring and summer resort.

Toby Orenstein won a Helen Hayes Award this week for her direction of Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical at Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia. Each year, the awards recognize excellence in professional theater in the Washington area. The awards were announced Monday. "I was in very elite company in my nomination," said Orenstein, who owns the dinner theater. Other nominees for directing a resident musical (one that does not tour) were from the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage and Signature Theatre, all in Washington.

Convention says that most actors would rather be onstage than on-screen - you know, the smell of greasepaint, the roar of a live crowd, the thrill of getting an immediate response to your performance. But that's not Mark Redfield, a fixture on the local stage for much of the 1990s. Five years have passed since his last performance before a live audience; this summer, he completed his first movie, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, for which he wears the myriad hats of actor, director, set designer, co-producer and co-screenwriter.

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful," wrote Margaret Mitchell in the opening lines of Gone With the Wind. But that didn't stop David O. Selznick from casting Vivien Leigh, who was, in the part. Lovers of the novel were appalled. Just as, when the casts for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Fellowship of the Ring (opening in December) were announced, some devotees of the novels of J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien howled. Lots of people, when they read novels, imagine them as movies, which leads to disappointment when the novels become films.

High school spring plays in Howard County Atholton - Seussical, Thursday to March 8, 7 p.m.; March 9, 3 p.m. 410-313-7065. Centennial - West Side Story, April 2-4, 7 p.m.; April 5, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-313-285 6. Chapelgate Christian Academy - Don't Drink the Water, March 15, 7 p.m. 410-442-5888 Glenelg Country School - Aesop's Foibles, Thursday and Friday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-531-8600. Hammond - Honk, Thursday to March 7, 7 p.m.; March 8, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. 410-313-7615.

For more than two decades, Toby's Dinner Theatre has set the regional standard for its genre of entertainment. Toby's productions have garnered 17 Helen Hayes nominations. The Columbia theater remains one of the few of its type to offer live musical accompaniment for its shows, while the house's in-the-round design assures unobstructed views and reasonable proximity to the stage. With prices ranging from $22.50 to $41.50, Toby's is a genuine bargain, offering top-quality entertainment and a buffet dinner for a fraction of the cost of a ticket to Washington's Kennedy Center or Baltimore's Lyric Theater.