Dublin Writers Festival

REVIEW: The Jekyll and Hyde Inheritance, Monday 23 May

As the opening writers event for the Festival, those at The Jekyll and Hyde Inheritance in the Samuel Beckett Theatre experienced an interesting, creative and thought provoking presentation from four Scottish authors last night. As a counterpoint almost to the Obamania outside, we had four talented, passionate and well researched authors introducing, inviting and explaining Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” in their own inimitable styles to a receptive audience. Following an introduction to the event and the Festival by Programme Director Liam Browne, programme chairperson Mia Gallagher took to the stage to introduce the evening and her esteemed panel. Here’s what she had to say about the idea behind the evening. We started with music from Donny O’Rourke and Dave Whyte who performed a selection of songs chosen for, inspired by and reflecting on the evening’s themes. Here’s Southside Blues and I Will Make You Brooches: Our first speaker to the stage was Louise Welsh. It was immediately apparent that Louise had researched Stevenson thoroughly as she led us through the background to the tale; his childhood nightmares, the city he lived in, his “talent for dreaming“. Though obviously a fan of Stevenson, she was by no means a disciple, hastening to point out that some of his work had “scenes strung together with no concession to entertainment.” It was respect without fawning adoration. Her facial expressions showing her passion, her imagery was evocative, provoking and gentle. She talked of how Stevenson’s “…dreaming had become a talent; his dreams were now handled by the little people that manage man’s internal theatre”.  Her tale of how the original manuscript may or may not have been burned, prompting Stevenson to write 64,000 words in six days, was warmly received, in stark contrast to the sirens blaring outside. A lovely challenge was to “throw off our daytime selves, to travel by night and enter the theatre of the brain”. We then had a song called  “Capernaum“ Kevin MacNeil took to the podium with two very different pieces. First was a reading from his book A Method Actor’s Guide to Jekyll and Hyde – an excerpt of which is below: He then treated us to a specially commissioned piece about Siddharta and Devadatta, concerning the famous fable about the ownership of a swan. “If life is to have value” he proposed “then he who sets to preserve that life has ownership”. Kevin was charming, well spoken and erudite. His aphorism at the end of his talk about how at any one time someone in the world may be breathing in exact synchronicity with you still has me thinking about it. Back to some music from O’Rourke and Whyte: We then were treated to John Burnside, who admitted to us that when he was young, he thought Hyde was the baddy. His tale, an excerpt of which is below – deals with honesty, betrayal, pain and acceptance. Very different to the other contributors and yet compelling and appropriate to the theme. Our final writer to speak was Richard Holloway. With all due respect to the other writers, Holloway’s years of presence at a pulpit really benefited his delivery of his time in the USA and his reverie from a train journey taken around the time of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. The panel discussion was interesting with questions taken from the audience. Our finalé was two songs – Lammes and The Die is Cast. Our thanks to all who made the evening a success, including our partners at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Edinburgh: UNESCO City of Literature.