Hello,

we live in Holland and i got a surprise trip.1997 :D
It was a grand tour on Broadway and there i met Jeckyll & Hyde.
And i felt in love with the music and the players.
I have seen this musical several times when i visit New York City.

Every 6 months we came for business back in NYC and up i go to see this musical and some other musicals

I have made 5 or 6 trips and saw the last matinee performance Original Broadway Cast (1997)
Robert Cuccioli as Jekyll and Hyde, Linda Eder as Lucy, and Christiane Noll as Emma, and the rest of the original cast from the Broadway production at the Plymouth Theater.
I also bought the music cd but it broke and i did anything to get it delivered here. (what wasnt easý in 2000)
It take 4 months to realise it.

Now i saw that there was a dvd with David Hasselhof in the leadingpart....... he might be doing great but he ain't Robert Cuccioli.

Now i was thinking.... is there someone. somewhere.. or....whatever :D has a DVD or Video that has the original cast ??
You make me happy. and i would feel like a teenager again:D

I am sorry for the mistakes in my english but it is a bit rusty.........

for the rest i want to wish u all a good 2007

Britty

No, sorry.

Brit, don't worry about your rusty English, we love you anyway. And lucky you got to see Robert Cuccioli. That is unfair in the most unfair way.

Welcome to the forums, by the way!

did they even have an obc dvd?

I don't believe there is a DVD of the OBC, only the Hoff one with Andrea Rivette and Coleen Sexton..

Sorry! Wish there was an OBC recording...

Unfortunately, there isn't a video or DVD with the OBC, or any of the other Broadway leads... only the one with Hasselhoff, Sexton and Rivette.

And that's a crying shame, Pete, a crying shame. lol

Not really.

The broadway recording was horrible. Cuccioli can sing, but not anywhere near as good as I expected after Anthony Warlow's performance in the 1994 concept album.

I believe they took out some of the best songs in the show and replaced them with lacklustre elements to make Jekyll almost saint-like.

List:

I need to know:: Lost in The Darkness

Bring on the Men:: Good and Evil



Then they went and destroyed ALIVE by splitting it up into parts.

In fact the only improvement I felt the broadway musical had over the '94 concept was Murder, Murder. The inclusion of the murders in the song was better.

I believe Anthony Warlow never peformed the role on stage simply because he felt it didn't live up to the promise that the 1994 complete works concept showed.


Well, there's my two cents.


With Regards


Tristan Flynn

I love the OBC!
Isn't Jekyll supposed to be a paragon of virtue? An epitome of perfection?
I love Cuccioli's voice so much... The way he alters it for Hyde is awesome. And I HATE Bring On The Men. I'm sorry... I've seen it too much. i never got to see Good and Evil live... That song seems to sum up the show more than Bring on the Men, doesn't it? Although Bring on the Men does sum lucy up.
ALIVE! being split up... it depends on your view. I like it either way.
Also, I hate how Confrontation was altered. I like the version with "It's over now, I know inside..." rather than the reprisal of "Lost in the Darkness."

There. Rambling done.

No. Have you even READ the book? In the book he's just a scientist who wants to help people. Of course the only actual murder in the book was Sir Danvers if I remember.

In the book Jekyll and Hyde aren't all that different when it comes to attitudes. Hyde is simply the darker elements that Jekyll hides because of his upper-class upbringing. A caged beast we all have. And when he drinks the formula it doesn't CREATE Hyde perse... it merely releases Jekyll from the moral bounds he has placed upon himself as a scientist. He also becomes small and disgusting... the personified version evil that has not been out enough to grow like the better elements of Jekyll's nature.

Thats why Hyde is uncontrollable. The darker elements weren't let out enough so he never really learned to control them, merely caged them up and locked them away.

Say what you will... but I like Warlow's Hyde. Its smoother, darker and more animilistic then his Jekyll... but when it counts they sound similar. Why? Because Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. You'll notice that when Jekyll gets angry at the Board of Governers in Warlows portrayal, he sounds very much like Hyde with a slight growl and all when he shouts. Thats because the Hyde elements are already showing themselves within him. That arrogance, and unwillingness to listen to his friends and his superiors.

Cuccioli on the other hand sounds very weak compared to the power of Warlow's voice. I guess it all boils down to how I believe the show should have been done for Broadway. But again, no two productions are the same. I think my favourite has to be that German one from ages back.

We already have the storylines about the fine distinction between good and evil without having it drummed into us repeatedly by Lucy's song and the butchered version of Facade.

Lucy works in what really amounts to a 19th century whorehouse. One doesn't sing about the distinctions between good and evil on stage if one is a prostitute. Her original number sums up her facade of seduction but as we see later on, she is hardly as free and easy as she pretends to be. Its another variation of the themes started with the original ensemble piece FACADE.

The show contained so many elements beside the good and evil thing that it was almost an insult that they thought the audience was too stupid to understand each of them when they are woven intricately together as they were in the 94 concept.

At last something we agree on. The original confrontation was better. It still puts shivers to my spine listening to it.

Personally they should drop LOST IN THE DARKNESS altogether. It is such a boringly cliche song. And doesn't grab the audience from the first like I NEED TO KNOW does. Hell they could fit both if they wished to. It easy enough to have them play one after the other... Jekyll singing about his father first and then a scene directly after in his laboratory as he's working on a human version of his formula for the board of governers before the engagement party.


Flynn 19

Okay, sorry. Those were only opinions, which are like organs; everyone has them. I was only voicing mine.
And yes, I have read the book. In my opinion, someone searching to perpetuate all evil in the world through drugs is quite something, and would appear to be virtuous.
In regards to the Bring on the Men/Good and Evil, I like the lyrics for GNE more than BOTM. BOTM does sum up Lucy, and make more sense.
I'm amazed how you completely had a different opinion for everything.
However, Lost in the Darkness should not be dropped completely. I like it.

Ta
Although, I do agree with your agreeing about Alive and Confrontation. Most people do.

hi all;)

I also heard the stand in for Robert Cuccioli and he did his best but he couldn't ehhhhh compare? hope it is the right word;) to him but he did his best and he must be the best they did have in the house:)

otherwise the wouldn't had let him on the stage.
he did his best.....;)

so i think david hasselhoff also do his best too..........but in my eyes he is still baywatch;) grinnzzzzzz

we all have our favourite........ ohhhhhhhh Robert Cuccioli come back..........grinzzzz

Robert Cuccioli........ did he play in/on other musicals?

britty

Wasn't Cuccioli's stand-in Rob Evan? Or did Rob Evan come later? I'm not sure.

Anywho, when we're talking about productions, I get the feeling that by the time the show reached Broadway, the creators were forced to say yes to a lot of changes just for it to go on at the Plymouth. I feel that the Broadway version, though it had a lot of good points, is not by any means the "definitive" version in my eyes.

It was dumbed down in a lot of ways (Good & Evil, Millions of Facade reprises), and could have been SO much more imaginative in it's staging (yes, it's all very nice to have every piece of set sliding in from all angles, but be a bit more imaginative, take chances!). Technical aspects weren't daring - the set as I've just mentioned but the lighting could have been very dramatic, it was just... plain. And there wasn't enough gore, AT ALL. I wanted the gore to be shocking, unrealistic, I wanted it to be a spectacle, and frankly, it wasn't. And don't even get me started on the staging of the Confrontation...

However, it is an interesting piece of J & H History to look into, and boasted some brilliant performances - Rob Evan's understudying of J & H (and he is now J & H on the Resurrection recording, and I heard somewhere that Frank regards him as his favourite Jekyll), Andrea Rivette - A very talented lady, and Coleen Sexton - I know this girl divides opinion, but I thought she had everything - her Lucy was vulnerable, naive, and I just wanted to protect her, she was absolutely GORGEOUS and you could see why she was the leading act at The Red Rat :P, and her singing - not perfect, but she really struck a chord with me, her voice was powerful and raw, and defines Lucy's songs for me (I find that Kate Shindle is rather whiny and nasal, and Linda Eder, as amazing as she may be, fails to stir much emotion in me when she plays Lucy, every song sounds the same).

Sorry, off topic, but that's my input! :D

Rob Evan was the stand by in the pre-Broadway production. When it opened on Broadway in April '97 Cuccioli was the main lead and Rob Evan was the alternate J/H playing Wed/ Sat matinees. Rob then took over the lead when Cooch left.

But let me tell you, Rob was described as many things,,,but never ehhhh! He was a GREAT J/H and played the role for almost 4 years! And yes...Frank was quoted as saying "Rob Evan is the best singing Jekyll onstage at Rob's final perfromance". (which of course happened twice! long story)

All us, ole' "jekkies" were there for all the special performances.

I think many people confuse the purpose of the "Complete Work" album. It isn't supposed to be "Jekyll & Hyde" as it is onstage, or in any other form, more of a "greatest hits" out of 6 hours of completed music. Lyricist Leslie Bricusse says so himself in the liner notes:

"We arrived at what we now have via more than sixty completed songs (the average musical contains fifteen) and enough recitative to make Wagner spin in his grave. It would take six hours or more to play it all.

Happily, you will only need two hours to play what we have for you here. I hesitate to call it "Jekyll & Hyde's Greatest Hits," but it most certainly is "The Best of Jekyll & Hyde.""

Still, it remains to be seen that it's not exactly the complete work if the full "version" is 6 hours long! I don't think there *is* a definitive version, that's why I've become so open-minded about it. I like elements of each version, although I do agree that the B'way show was "dumbed down" compared to the fantastic German production which was a fin-de-siEcle triumph! However, I don't think the German's tastes would have appealed on Broadway, you only have to look at what happened with "Tanz Der Vampire".

EDIT: And I do NOT like "Lost In The Darkness"

I wish that Anthony Warlow was in the video I'd love to see what he'll look like as Jekyll and Hyde. I wonder....

Amen to that, love, amen to that. I love Anthony Warlow.

They should AT LEAST TRY to get the original cast together so they can film it for a DVD! I'm desperate for an Original Broadway Cast DVD!!!!! I can't believe they never thought of filming the original cast when they were all there!!! :(

Oh, it's filmed, never you fear, it's just not released to the public. It'll be in the Lincoln Center archives.

IT IS?!!!!! When I looked on the Jekyll and Hyde Website under the FAQs, they said it had never been filmed with the original broadway cast!!!! I can't believe this!!! The original broadway cast video recording of Phantom of the Opera is also at the Lincoln Center archives!! I wish both would release the orignal cast recordings to DVD!!!! Someone should create a petition to send to Frank Wilhorn to release the recording on DVD!!! We need it on DVD, I mean, they have the David Hasselhoff version on DVD for petes sake!!! I'm sooo desperate to have the original!!!

It was most likely filmed for archival and documentation purposes, if not as a keepsake for the actor's involved.

You'll find a lot of shows do (most of the one's I'm in do) this and make a DVD or VHS to give to the actors so they can review their performance themselves and have that keepsake at home for when they feel that little bit nostalgic, and for a show of this professional a level, they'd never trust that video to an actor's house. You know how people break in and steal that stuff to seel to papers, its how half the sex tapes get out.


Tristan

Oh come on!!!! There are other original broadway cast recordings of musicals out there!!! Why can't these musicals be released?!!!! The fans I bet are desperate for them!!! In addition, there's ALWAYS hope that the fans can get the creators to release them!!! The fans should AT LEAST TRY!!!

The DVD with David Hasselhoff was shot for PBS. The quality of that production is paramount, A+

I've never seen the Original Broadway Cast so I can't judge the state of that video. It's most likely that it's nowhere near as impressive as the PBS capture. That's why it's not released. All Broadway shows are video archived, except for the early ones, and almost all of them are in the Lincoln Center archives. But that doesn't mean their quality is as impressive as the PBS capture.

I've seen parts of the Broadway "Phantom" from documentaries, on DVDs and television, and it didn't impress me at all. Because of the quality of these captures, I don't think they'd be released for that reason alone. Also, "The Phantom of the Opera" is still doing business as a stage-show. The movie was a different animal. They would be unwise to release a Broadway cast DVD until the production has closed. The same thing goes for Jekyll, except it's the opposite. There's no commercial sense to release the Broadway cast. The audience is not big enough. It would take years to negotiate etc. Frank would have no power in these situations?

But if you can get to the Lincoln Center archives, you could ask for permission to view the recording at the place. But their terms are pretty strict, far as I know. They would also have the original productions of "The Scarlet Pimpernel", "The Civil War" and "Dracula".

I'm with rockfenris2005 on this one. They do have the recordings available, but only on the premises. They are not released generally because of the rights issues and all of the royalties involved. The market is not as big as it is for movies (sadly) and as such, they would not generate enough money to make their release lucrative.

I also agree about the Broadway version of J&H being a bit 'dumbed down', but as I understand it, that was the choice of the producers - not Frank or Leslie. They were putting up the money, so they had a say-so in how the show was produced. You could tell by some of the staging that they were also trying to appeal to a part of the audience that the show did not previously reach out to... hence the male dancers in gold lame (which really made me cringe).

It seems that each time I saw the show, whether at the Alley in 1990 all the way through the post Broadway Tour, it was a different animal. I can honestly say that my absolute favorite version was the Pre-Broadway Pre-pre-Tour version that was produced in Houston in early 1995.

Cuccioli was at his best there and the staging was out of this world. There were giant walls that moved during "Alive" that represented the streets of London. And while I know there is video of this particular production, the only thing available to the public (if you can find a source) is an hour long special on "The Making of J&H" that aired in Houston.

And what of the original production at the Alley in 1990? What was that like? Btw. I have a copy of The Making of J&H :D

I've got a copy of it, too. It's an awesome documentary - except the newspeople acting as hosts are kind of lame.

The original Alley production comes in a close second, mostly in its simplicity. I loved the way "Confrontation" was done in front of a full length mirror - with Dave Clemmons acting as 'Hyde'. At one point Chuck would turn away from the mirror and would move as though Dave was manipulating him like a puppet. (Sounds kind of silly, but it looked incredible.) I preferred that to the giant Hyde head they used on the tour. (I still ride the fence on the whole 'hair switch project' version from Broadway - it depends on the actor doing it as to whether or not it works).

But, getting back to the point... I saw the Alley version four times and loved it every time. There were so many changes even then, but each time it got a little better.

I do have a funny story about one of the times I saw it. During "Sympathy, Tenderness", when Jekyll is looking at Lucy's back... Chuck started to crack up. He and Linda struggled to get through the song. For years, I wondered what had happened. Then when the show toured through Dallas I asked Chuck about it. He told me that earlier that week, a newspaper article had referred to him as a 'Hunk.' Everyone in the cast was joking about it, and at that particular performance, someone had written "Hello Hunk" on Linda's back. When he moved her sleeve down and read it, he started losing it!!

Where did you find the documentary? Is it still available?

I originally got the documentary back in 1995. It was shown on TV in Houston and another fan recorded it for me. They in turn made a copy for me.

Wow that's amazing! Would you be able to put a copy of that on the internet?

A minor correction on the Jekyll video discussion... the Hasselhoff DVD wasn't filmed for PBS (and as far as I know, hasn't ever aired there - though they do present other Broadway shows from time to time). It was initially released on pay-per-view, and presented at a handful of cinemas around the country. Since then, it has been shown a few times on HBO.

I haven't ever seen the Lincoln Center's archive video of the original cast, to know what the quality is like. As others are saying, I suspect it's nowhere near the quality of the video that was released. My understanding is that those archival videos are shot on a single day, with a smaller crew while the released video was filmed over a week, with a (film) director and top-of-the-line equipment. Even with a petition, I don't think they would ever take the archive video and release it.

Also, the Lincoln Center archive doesn't have Frank's Dracula, and I don't know if they have Civil War. Sometimes they don't catch the shows that don't run as long. They do have Pimpernel though.

Best,
Peter

Hmmmm.... not sure if there are any legalities connected with that. I'll look into it.

It is also worth mentioning that a version of the broadway DVD also exists with Rob Evan playing J/H instead of Hasselhoff that was broadcasted earlier on in the day.

Clips can be found on YouTube. However, Rob is pretty bad in it. Barely a step up from Hasselhoff (IMO). I've never been a big fan of Rob Evan, but his performance on that DVD is not flattering at all.

Are you sure Lincoln Center has one?