JEKYLL & HYDE w/ Cooper Howell

Summary

Broadway Breakdown | JEKYLL & HYDE w/ Cooper Howell

Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Cooper Howell
Release Date: October 17, 2024

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Broadway Breakdown, host Matt Koplik welcomes theater professional Cooper Howell to take a deep dive into Frank Wildhorn’s cult musical, Jekyll & Hyde. True to the podcast's irreverent, passionate tone, Matt and Cooper dissect the show’s enduring legacy, memorable songs, infamous shortcomings, and campy appeal. The discussion weaves through personal anecdotes, critical analysis, and fan discourse, covering everything from the source material and Broadway production history to the book’s flaws, standout performances, and what makes the show beloved—and reviled—in equal measure.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The “Jekyll & Hyde” Phenomenon and Personal Encounters

[03:28-06:53]

• Cooper’s Introduction: Growing up in Utah’s theater-obsessed culture, where “everyone was obsessed” with Jekyll & Hyde. He recalls friends nicknaming roles and the pivotal presence of the score in teen theater circles.
• Matt’s NYC Perspective: Recalls ubiquitous posters, TV commercials, and theater camps where Jekyll & Hyde was a rite of passage, especially for self-identified “weird” theater kids.
• Cult Popularity: The show’s fanbase developed before Broadway through cast recordings (predating YouTube bootlegs). As Matt notes, “It was a viral hit before viral was even a thing.”

“This is the show that if you’re not normal, you love.” – Matt Koplik [12:27]

Critical Reception and Commercial History

[06:53-08:44]

• The original Broadway run (1997-2001) clocked nearly 1,600 performances but is infamous as the longest-running Broadway musical to lose money—a draw with persistent “mediocre to bad weeks” offset by brief upswings and stunt casting (e.g., David Hasselhoff, Sebastian Bach).
• Critics were disdainful, feeling their opinions would not sway audiences drawn in by pre-established fandom:

  “It has sold almost 300,000 copies. Like, this thing, like, has clout or at least has energy behind it.” – Matt [06:36]
  “Karma’s a bitch. My karma’s watching you.” – Matt, mocking problematic replacement actors [08:11]

The Forbidden Broadway Effect

[14:32-17:39]

• Matt reminisces on “Forbidden Broadway Cleans Up Its Act,” which mercilessly lampooned Jekyll & Hyde as “Phantom Lite”—a reputation that stuck.

  “It’s Phantom Lite … Caffeine-free diet Phantom of the Opera.” – Cooper [17:34]

• This satire frames much of how Jekyll & Hyde is perceived: bombastic, melodramatic, tuneful—but lacking the gravitas (or irony) of its predecessors.

Plot Deep-Dive and Thematic Problems

[18:19-27:43]

• Cooper delivers a lively, slightly irreverent plot summary—emphasizing the show’s blend of pseudo-science, duality, “Victorian Diet Coke” moral debates, and the iconic love triangle (or lack thereof).
• Both hosts riff on the show’s inability to create psychological complexity:

  “It’s musical theatre’s version of sciencey-science.” – Matt [19:26] “Their characters are both very flat. Emma is purity. Lucy isn’t even sin—she’s just like a fallen angel who’s trying to rise up.” – Matt [64:42]

Source Material vs. Musical: What’s Lost in Translation?

[29:35-40:37]

• Matt and Cooper discuss Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella and its numerous film adaptations. They note major departures in the musical:
  • The addition of significant female roles was meant to neutralize any queer subtext and add romantic/sexual tension.
  • The musical crafts a love triangle, but, as both argue, it’s dramatically weak: “It’s never a love triangle because Ivy is terrified of Hyde… the musical’s what made it kind of a love triangle, and in my opinion, a bad one at that.” – Matt [40:09]

Bops, Belters, and the Linda Eder Effect

[42:53-48:55 & throughout]

• Belty Ballads: Both hosts celebrate the musical’s iconic songs—“Someone Like You,” “In His Eyes,” “Take Me As I Am,” “Confrontation,” and more—as irresistible, “shower belt” anthems with little dramatic consequence but huge vocal payoff.
• Linda Eder’s Legacy:

  “Linda Eder’s voice on the Jekyll and Hyde score is… it is unworldly how good she sounds.” – Matt [43:24]
  “She has that type of voice where you feel so safe, because you know she’s going to give you the goods.” – Cooper [43:38]

• These songs, however, mostly serve as plot-stopping vehicles for vocal fireworks (see "Eponine/Les Mis effect" on Lucy; [58:03]).

The Book Problem: Story Stops for Songs

[57:36-62:08]

• The musical’s book is widely agreed to be weak, with characters—especially Lucy—existing primarily to deliver showstopping numbers, not to advance the plot.

  “Every time Lucy sings, she stops the plot and there is no point to what she’s singing… you could take a red pen and just red pen her entire character plot, all of her songs, everything.” – Cooper [59:09]

• The show foregrounds hits and “one-statement songs,” often with generic lyrics, while ignoring storytelling nuance.

Missed Nuance and Moral Simplicity

[74:51-82:20]

• Matt and Cooper long for a version of the show embracing true psychological and moral ambiguity, with richer arcs for Emma and Lucy and less black-and-white moralizing.

  “There is no nuance to it at all. It’s almost like a Star Wars level of, like, this is good and this is evil.” – Cooper [75:19]

“Murder, Murder” and Lyric Camp

[84:21-110:47]

• “Murder, Murder,” the infamously goofy Act 2 opener, is dissected as both plot-dump and camp classic, emblematic of Leslie Bricusse’s much-mocked, rhyme-challenged lyrics:

  “To kill outside St. Paul's requires a lot of balls.”

• The score is riddled with such overwrought lines, fueling both parody and affectionate ridicule.

“Jekyll and Hyde has the same problem as Diana, where it’s like—is it camp or are you taking it seriously?” – Cooper [66:33]

Staging, Design, and Broadway vs. Pre-Broadway

[126:08-129:17]

• The Broadway version’s design is praised for sleekness and stylized Gothic flair, which tonally works better than the bloated, self-serious tour version:

  “Gothic horror meets Teen Vogue” – Matt [127:07]
  “It is sleek, chic, and weak.” – Matt [159:51]

• The infamous swap of “Bring on the Men” for “Good and Evil” is debated (with neither seen as dramatically effective).

The Wildhorn Discourse: Fans vs. “Snobs”

[140:22-143:35]

• The podcast explores the perpetual battle between Wildhorn devotees and detractors, noting the composer’s skill for catchy, if wildly repetitive, pop melodies, but also lack of dramatic discipline:

  “Frank Wildhorn is one of those hot button topics where you have the camp that loves him that is so nasty to the other side because ‘you elitists, you’re so up your own butt’...” – Matt [102:45]

If We Ran the Red Rat: How We’d Fix the Show

[123:05-125:42 & elsewhere]

• Matt and Cooper brainstorm ways to streamline Jekyll & Hyde:
  • Cut or significantly reduce Lucy’s role.
  • Open with the engagement party, move to the board scene, then the self-experimentation.
  • Clarify themes, add nuance to morality, and make the plot more coherent.
  • Reimagine for camp or contemporary resonance.

“We just fixed Jekyll and Hyde. I love it. Frank Wildhorn, call us up!” – Matt [124:05]

The 2013 Revival & "Confrontation"

[150:33-153:26]

• They discuss the much-derided 2013 Broadway revival (with Constantine Maroulis), the show’s failed attempt at slick projection-heavy modernization, and the “Confrontation” staging debate over the years.
• Matt dismisses the idea that Jekyll & Hyde’s weaknesses can be fully masked by clever direction or aesthetic updates.

The “Pump and Dump” of Melodrama

[155:01-156:12]

• Matt memorably likens the show’s structure to “lazy toxic top energy”—build-up with little payoff, a feverish spectacle followed by awkward aftermath:

  “Jekyll & Hyde is lazy, toxic top energy. ... They edge you, and then in ‘Murder, Murder’ they make you come immediately — and then there’s still an hour left of Act Two.” – Matt [155:01]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Score’s Place in Pop Culture:
  “It was like a viral hit before viral was even a thing.” – Cooper [05:51]
• On Linda Eder:
  “That is a sing. If you’re doing a production of Jekyll & Hyde, the people that are playing Jekyll, Hyde, and Lucy have to be just freaks of nature.” – Cooper [46:25]
• On the Book’s Flaws:
  “The plot stops so that someone can sing. … You could attach ‘Someone Like You’ to any character at any time.” – Cooper [58:03]
• On Facades and Camp:
  “They lean so heavily into melodrama… I think is what Jekyll & Hyde is. It's not actually a thriller, it's a soapy melodrama.” – Cooper [102:14]
• On Fans vs. Critics:
  “There’s a happy middle. Because Wildhorn has a gift for melody.” – Matt [103:14]
• On the Enduring Appeal:
  “...in spite of itself, you do get very excited.” – Cooper [157:15]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:44-03:28] – Cold Open, Introductions, and Episode Setup
• [03:28-06:53] – Personal Jekyll & Hyde Histories and Cult Popularity
• [06:53-08:44] – Broadway Run, Critics, and Stunt Casting
• [14:32-17:39] – “Forbidden Broadway” and “Phantom Lite” Satire
• [18:19-27:43] – Full Plot Recap & Skewering; The Love ‘Triangle’
• [29:35-40:37] – Source Material vs. Broadway Musical
• [42:53-48:55] – Ballads and Linda Eder; “Shower Belts”
• [57:36-62:08] – The Book Problem: Plot Stops for Songs
• [74:51-82:20] – Nuance and Morality, What’s Missing
• [84:21-110:47] – “Murder, Murder,” Camp, and Lyric Problems
• [126:08-129:17] – Tour vs. Broadway: Staging and Design
• [140:22-143:35] – The Frank Wildhorn Discourse
• [150:33-153:26] – The 2013 Revival and “Confrontation” Staging
• [155:01-156:12] – “Pump and Dump” Melodrama Analogy
• [157:24-162:16] – Final Grades and Brief Tony History
• [173:01-End] – Outro; Invitations for Reviews, Socials, and Linda Eder Diva Sendoff

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Takeaways & Final Thoughts

• Jekyll & Hyde thrives as a camp curiosity and vocal showcase rather than a dramatically rewarding musical. Its enduring bops (especially as delivered by Linda Eder) and over-the-top melodrama ensure its place in the hearts (and showers) of theater nerds—if not in the pantheon of great Broadway writing.
• The show’s flaws inspire both affectionate derision and critical frustration; both hosts agree that, with a streamlined plot and more willingness to lean into camp or subversive morality, it could be reimagined into something even more compelling.
• Ultimately, as Cooper summarizes, “Nuance is important”—and that’s what Jekyll & Hyde sorely lacks, for all its pop opera thunder.

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Closing Diva

The episode closes with Linda Eder in her Tony-belter prime, “good and evil and their merits” forever echoing in high belt as the hosts toast to the musical's campy, bumpy, melodious—if flawed—legacy.

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[Show notes condensed and structured for both accessibility and theatrical flair. For deep-dive timestamps and more, follow @koplik on Instagram.]

Transcript

[Matt Koflik]

Read about the hideous murder. Profane religious murder. That poor old bishop, what a shock. Seen walking with his daughter a moment prior to slaughter. The shepherd tending to his flock. He died in a London slum, A slave to martyrdom. He died without complaints.

[Cooper Howell]

He should be made a saint.

[Matt Koflik]

His love and glory to God. He lost his very heart, why should he?

[Cooper Howell]

Should it be.

[Matt Koflik]

Hello, all you theater lovers, both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history legacy of American theatre's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called Grab Bag and is covering shows that you submitted and are picked out of a bowl. Hi, I'm your host, Matt Koflik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is a theater professional. You might have seen his work on the. At the. Sorry. At the. At the Perlman Park. Yeah, we're gonna call it that with Cats, the Jellica Ball. Please welcome Cooper Owl. Hi.

[Cooper Howell]

That was incredible.

[Matt Koflik]

It was something. Hi, Cooper Owl.

[Cooper Howell]

That was really incredible.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, I figured for the sake of.

[Cooper Howell]

Panicked, I was like, are we doing cockney all day today or.

[Matt Koflik]

No, I can't commit to that bit forever. I figured for the sake of split personalities, I might as well give a bit Personality.

[Cooper Howell]

Hey, sounded as good as Linda Etter her cockney on the Gothic Thriller.

[Matt Koflik]

So, I mean, yeah, absolutely.

[Cooper Howell]

You can do what you can, too.

[Matt Koflik]

And I sing just as well. Cooper, how are you today?

[Cooper Howell]

I'm so good. I'm so good. I'm coffeeed up.

[Matt Koflik]

You are? Coffee. It's a beautiful day.

[Cooper Howell]

East side.

[Matt Koflik]

I know you venture to the east side for this.

[Cooper Howell]

I biked from Harlem. It was a wonderful trip.

[Matt Koflik]

So there's so much energy in this room, and it's good, because what the flying fuck are we talking about today?

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, we're gonna. We're gonna go in on Jekyll and Hyde, the musical. Mm.

[Matt Koflik]

Now, I don't know if we're starting with one finger and then building up to five or if we're just going in with five. I don't know. I don't know what the world has in store for us.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, let's. Let's just get into it.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, it's. It's a wild.

[Cooper Howell]

There's.

[Matt Koflik]

There's so much with this show.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I will. So full disclosure to listeners, because I. I know some people who were very, very excited for us to be covering this. There might have been two or three listeners who reached out to me directly and asked if they could throw their hat in the ring as guests. And I was like, maybe, but just a lot of people who are very, very excited for this one. And I don't know if it was on a Diana level of like, oh my God, I can't wait to hear the camp or people who are genuinely like, no, Matt's gonna find the value in this and like, let the world know. So I just want to say off the bat, I don't like this show.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't think it's terribly good.

[Cooper Howell]

Okay.

[Matt Koflik]

That said, okay to say that there's no redeeming factors in it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, that would be incorrect.

[Matt Koflik]

That would be incorrect. So we will be discussing said things, but I just want to link in case people were ready for a nine hour episode of us being like, here's why this is secretly a masterpiece that's not coming on my end of the, of the river. I don't know about you, but we'll talk about it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, we'll get into it.

[Matt Koflik]

So. So, Coops, how did Jekyll and Hyde enter your chat?

[Cooper Howell]

So Jekyll and Hyde. So I grew up in, in Utah, which is a very, very, very, very theater arts performing place. Like Mormons, they always put all of their kids into voice lessons and dance lessons. And I remember in my senior year of high school, we did les mis and 400 people auditioned for it. And so, like, being in the school musical was very, very, very, very cool. Yeah, yeah, it was like a big, big thing. So musical theater was everywhere. And my good friend Kirsten Ivins was obsessed with. Hi, Kirsten. She was obsessed with Jekyll and Hyde and her dream role was, was Lucy, this, this prostitute character. And I remember she performed In His Eyes with my friend Carrie and they did. She was Lucy and Carrie was, was Emma and she was dressed in this. This is Utah. Right? So you can't show like, you can't show arms or whatever, but she was dressed in like as slutty an outfit as she possibly could. Singing In His Eyes and, and everyone seemed to know what the show was and everyone was talking about Linda Etter and everyone was obsessed with it. And so I took my. I forced my mom to go down to the Barnes and Nobles and I bought the, the album and I listened to it like all the, all the time. And I'm not sure if I actually liked it or, or I was listening to it because I wanted to be popular. But, but I was pretty familiar with the music then around like 2000. And I think it was like when the rights to Scarlet Pimpernel came out for regional theaters. Everyone in Utah was doing Scarlet Pimpernel or Jekyll and Hyde. Like, everyone. So I just saw Jekyll and Hyde at a community theater like four or five or six times. I've like, really, really, really, really seen it. And I feel like I have a pretty face, firm opinion on Jekyll and Hyde now just because I've seen it so much and that music is everywhere. But. But yeah, I mean, it's such a popular show. That's the, that's the thing is, like, it was like a, like a viral hit before viral was even a thing. Yeah. So popular.

[Matt Koflik]

We'll get into all of that as well. I would say, like, there is a precedent to Michael in the bathroom and be more chill. Kind of coming to Broadway with a fan base.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Jekyll and Hyde is sort of the, the prototype of that 100.

[Cooper Howell]

Linda Etter is like the Joy woods of her day, for sure.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, it's. But it's, it's so fascinating because, like, I'm reading all the reviews for the original 1997 Broadway production.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh my gosh. Those reviews, the reviews.

[Matt Koflik]

But they all mention how the show, like, came in with a fan base already.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct.

[Matt Koflik]

Which. That might be the first time a Broadway musical that was not a transfer from the West End or, like, had a major off Broadway run opened on Broadway with like already a devoted followers.

[Cooper Howell]

And There was no YouTube, so people weren't watching bootlegs, they were just listening to this album. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

They all, though, they all make a point of like, it has sold like almost 300,000 copies. Like, this thing, like, has, has clout or at least has, has energy behind it. Yeah. And I think that might have added some of the disdain from the critics of, like, our opinion won't matter because people are going to go see the show anyway.

[Cooper Howell]

And they did. I mean, it ran for four and a half years, which is pretty good.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, it ran. It ran for almost 1600 performances. It did still lose money. It's the longest running Broadway. It's the longest running Broadway show to still lose money. I mean, it didn't lose its entire investment. I don't know what its entire investment was, but according to. It's a Playbill article. When it closed in January of 2001.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

So I guess about four years at that point. It lost 1.5 million.

[Cooper Howell]

Wow. Damn.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, I would assume that the production cost was like six.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

So I see. Like, I think it made back a good chunk of its money because it didn't. It's not like they were losing money every week and still ran. They. Like, I'm looking at the grosses. They had some good weeks, some really good weeks, and then a whole bunch of mediocre to bad weeks. But it was like, it was always fluctuating. And they definitely had some choices with some star casting the last year of the run.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah. Sebastian Bach and David Hasselhoff.

[Matt Koflik]

David Hasselhoff and an actor I never heard of called Jack Wagner. He was on Melrose Place.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

And was apparently really big soap opera star as well.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

So he was their first bit and apparently was really terrible and wasn't nice to people in the cast. So his comeuppance is that I don't know who he is.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Take that. Yeah. You're like, karma.

[Matt Koflik]

Karma's. Karma's a bitch. My karma's watching you.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh. Am I allowed to swear?

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, abso fucking lutely. How can you not swear in an episode where a cut song from the pre robbery trial was Bitch, Bitch, Bitch?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

A song that thinks it's so good. Is it, though?

[Cooper Howell]

I mean, no, but, like, it's so fun to listen to. Yeah, that's the one that's, like, bisexual or whatever. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

The only time queerness is mentioned in that entire show. And it's an.

[Cooper Howell]

It's to switch or whatever.

[Matt Koflik]

Exactly. And it's cut.

[Cooper Howell]

Delicious.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, that is a song. That's the first 90 seconds of the main event from Diana where all the rich people are like, we're so bored at this party. It's that for four minutes, Jekyll and.

[Cooper Howell]

Hyde is really giving. I mean, Diana is really Jekyll and Hyde coded. You know what I mean? There's a lot of similarities there.

[Matt Koflik]

Before there was Queer Coded, there was Jekyll and Hyd.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

So Jekyll and Hyde came into my chat. Thank you for asking. So.

[Cooper Howell]

Oops.

[Matt Koflik]

It's fine. It's not like it's my podcast or anything. No, I. So I am a theater boy and I am from the city, so I remember all of the posters and I remember the commercials as a kid.

[Cooper Howell]

And is this the poster with Linda and Robert and they're sort of like, in that, like, weird neon light. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Where they're. It basically looks like airbrushed to death. It's very Selina Meyer on the COVID of her memoir. And veep. Woman first. First woman. Like, I'm sorry.

[Cooper Howell]

Incredible reference.

[Matt Koflik]

Thank you. So.

[Cooper Howell]

Thank you.

[Matt Koflik]

But honestly, like, I also feel the same thing. About Kelly Bishop's memoir. I don't know if you have read about that.

[Cooper Howell]

No.

[Matt Koflik]

The third Gilmore girl.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

Her photo. Her photo is also giving Gary Selena Meyer. Woman first. First woman.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

You're just like, was this a photograph? Was this painted by a blind person? Like, where is your jawline? Where is your nose? Like, it's just all. Yeah. So it's as if they took a photo of Linda and Robert Cuccioli and then just for, like.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Airbrush it into infinity. Like, make it look like the. Like the negative. Make it look like the negative of the photo.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. So I remember that poster. And then eventually, I think when Linda Etter and Robert Cuccioli left, they started taking more photos of whoever the replacement Jekyll was. I think it was Robert Evan. And so they were more specific photos of like, Jekyll and Lucy, like, in an embrace. And then when they started doing the stunt casting, like, I don't know who Jack Wagner was, but I remember his photo in the posters everywhere. I remember when Sebastian Bach's photos came about. And then I remember when the Hasselhoff movie was coming out.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And I remember seeing the commercials, because that was the 90s was also an era where Broadway commercials were all done by the same company. I think they were all Sereno coin.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And if you stayed home from school sick, you know, it was like cats and then.

[Matt Koflik]

All of them. Yeah. I remember certain images of the Phantom One. They always showed the mirror. Cats always showed the tire. And Jekyll and Hyde. It was always photos. I was always video of, I think Cuccioli or whoever was playing Jekyll, like, being Jekyll and then turning into Hyde and then like making out with whoever was playing Lucy's neck. And there's always, like a little bit of fire, a little bit of smoke. And that was always the thing.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

So part of me was like, this looks scary. And part of me was also like, but what? Because it was like scariness, but also sexiness. And so I never saw it, but I saw.

[Cooper Howell]

And you were correct. That is exactly what it is. Kinda.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, that's what they're aiming.

[Cooper Howell]

They're going for. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, because then we go into the next bit. Because then also. So I was not even 11 when the show closed. I was 10 going on 11. And I believe the Hasselhoff video. Same age, are we?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. 88.

[Matt Koflik]

No, 90.

[Cooper Howell]

Okay. I'm older than you. Wow.

[Matt Koflik]

Hey, Daddy.

[Cooper Howell]

Wow. I love to turn into a different podcast. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Thank God. Well, or still the same podcast with all the vibes that the show is given.

[Cooper Howell]

True. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Listen, my favorite thing in the world is to find out that someone is older than me, because they will always be older than me, no matter how decrepit I turn.

[Cooper Howell]

Damn.

[Matt Koflik]

Listen, you're. You look way better than I do. And it doesn't matter how much better. You will always look. You will always be older. But.

[Cooper Howell]

So. Wow.

[Matt Koflik]

Thank you. That's all we're here for. That's what you came to the podcast for, baby.

[Cooper Howell]

So rude. I love it.

[Matt Koflik]

But I think the Hasselhoff movie came out like, a year or two later. But in that time, I started going to theater camp, and so I was, like, around all the kids who. Like, either the straight boys who loved singing why, God, why? From Missigon. And loved the last five years. And then, like, all the weird girl. Now, I don't mean weird weird, like, but the girls who would self identify as weird, who would take their T shirts and cut them off at the shoulder. Very Lucy's outfit and Dangerous Game, like, they loved doing that. Those are the girls who were big on Jekyll and Hyde. Like, this is the show that if you're not normal, you love and, like, interesting. Like. And because I was so eager for knowledge of all theater, like, I was always reading history books and all that stuff and wanted to listen to as much as I could. Like, people would shove the completed works, the 1994 recording, in my hand and try to get me to listen to it. Like, don't listen to the Broadway album. Listen to this one. It's the full scores. And has like, bitch, Bitch, Bitch, and Bring on the Men. And also, like, the females in my life who loved that song. I think it was like girls of the Night.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. I just listened to that on the way here. I mean, what. What a song that is. It does not get into the story at all.

[Matt Koflik]

There's no reason for it, which we'll get into.

[Cooper Howell]

But what a pop song that. I think such a good song.

[Matt Koflik]

I mean, that's sort of the ultimate clash of this show, right? Is that there's so many hooky boppy poppy bops.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And then you're like, well, listen, it's in my ear. I want to sing it at the nightclub. But, like, what the. Is she doing here?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Are we get. Are we getting into the music now or.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, there's no structure to this podcast. Oh, okay. I want. But let me do a quick finish of my timeline. I can talk forever if I wanted to, but so I did finally watch the Hasselhoff filmed version, and I remember being like, okay, I was too young to recognize that Hasselhoff was bad in it all. I could notice. I was just like, this is interesting. Some of these songs got under my skin early. They have remained there even if I don't love them very much. And then I got very into somehow Forbidden Broadway at the age of 11.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Don't ask me why. It just happened.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah. Gerard Alessandrini, Shout out.

[Matt Koflik]

So have you listened to Forbidden Broadway Cleans up its act?

[Cooper Howell]

No.

[Matt Koflik]

Okay, maybe it's because it's the one that I first listened to, but I think it's the best one. It's covering the 1997-1999 Broadway seasons, and.

[Cooper Howell]

There'S a lot there.

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, yeah. So they cover ragtime versus Lion King. And you know when the ragtime segment, what they call gag time, ends with Lion King winning all the Tonys, Marin Mazie's character sings, we can never get back our awards. And it's so good. They also do the Allen Coming Cabaret. They do BB north in Chicago. They do an amazing Titanic to the point that.

[Cooper Howell]

What a time on Broadway, though. What a time.

[Matt Koflik]

The Matthew Bourne Swan Lake, where it's all about being gay.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, that's the best Swan Lake ever. It's one of my favorite things.

[Matt Koflik]

Okay, so you need to listen to the forbidden Broadway iteration of it because it's all of the. All the gay stereotypes and tropes, but they do it to Swan Lake's music. And it's about, like, the gay romance, but it's their version of it. Like, they pas de something fierce. Then they go watch Mildred Pierce.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, my gosh.

[Matt Koflik]

What? Yeah. Then at the Roxy, they dance till dawn. They twist and shout, and they get it on five hours of eternal love. God, I love it. But. And also Titanic. I heard that spoof of Titanic before I ever heard the score to Titanic.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

So whenever I hear it or when I even saw it at encores and they were singing Ship of Dreams, I kept going Ship of Air because the lyrics are there she is tons of steel, but not real Ship of air. It's so fucking good. So Jekyll and Hyde. They did one for Jekyll and Hyde, and I'll never. It's like, burned my brain forever and to the point that Gunkle, the pod, Adam Ellsbury and I quoted to each other. So it's a woman in a trench coat looking to buy tickets at tkts, and the narrator is doing, like, a Duh, gothic narration. And I wrote it all down because I want you to hear it. You want to see Phantom of the Opera, but Phantom is sold out. You want to see Les Miserables, but you can't pronounce the title. Then see the show that's not quite as good but just as long and dimly lit. See Jekyll and Hyde. And then they do a whole bit about Linda Etter and like, she's like the new singing star Linda Etter. And the ticket buyer's like, who? And then the Etter comes out singing, no one knows who I am. Then Bob Cuccioli comes out and they go, Bob Cuccioli is Jekyll and Hyde. By day he was a notable doctor searching for the cure that would set men's hearts free. By night he performed in a trashy musical murder mystery. By day he dressed in debonair suits. By our money. By night he murdered naughty girls who deserved it. By day he drank tea and listened to Bach. By night he wore a greasy wig that frightened girls from Trenton New Jers. And then Bob Cuccioli does this is the moment, but he's fighting with his Hyde self as well. And then it turns into anything you can do, I can do better.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure, sure.

[Matt Koflik]

And then ends with, see Jekyll and Hyde. Perfect for people who find Andrew Lloyd Webber's music too challenging. Jekyll and Hyde. It's Phantom light. And Adam and I say to shout to each other all the time, it's Phantom light.

[Cooper Howell]

I mean, it is, it's.

[Matt Koflik]

It's fair.

[Cooper Howell]

It's caffeine free diet Phantom of the Opera. It is basically exactly.

[Matt Koflik]

It is Phantom of the Opera. It's trying to be Phantom of the Opera. Meet Sweeney Todd coated in diet Mountain Dew.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. And it's.

[Matt Koflik]

It, Listen, it clearly has an audience. If we would be talking about it if it.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh yeah, this. I mean, I like begged you to do the Jekyll and Hyde episode. I begged you.

[Matt Koflik]

You sure did. And I was like, I love seeing a daddy on his knees.

[Cooper Howell]

That's right. It was a grand time to be alive. That's right.

[Matt Koflik]

Voodoo boom. So what? How many minutes have we done so far? Okay, we've got. Let's do like another five to six minutes. We'll take a break and we take the break. I'm going to ask you to tell the. Actually, no, wait. Five to six minutes should be enough. Can you tell the uncultured fucks out there.

[Cooper Howell]

Mm.

[Matt Koflik]

The plot of Jekyll and Hyde, like, what's this story?

[Cooper Howell]

Okay, so Jekyll and Hyde is about. It takes place in, like, Victorian era England, right? Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Victorian 1800.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. When I think of Jekyll and Hyde, I think of, like, those, like, dark, spooky, little, like, gas lights or whatever. Right. So anyway, anyway, I'm killing it. It's about this doctor whose father has gone crazy. Right. His dad's gone insane.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. His father is in an insane asylum.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And because his dad's gone insane, he wants to develop this, I don't know, cure. He has this experiment plan to remove people's evil from. From them. Like, he wants to medically divide their good and evil in their body. Kind of unclear.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, it's the sort of. I guess, like the idea is the psyche has good and evil, and if you can separate the two, you can maybe abolish one.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct. In his. Yeah. Which.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, Anyway, it's musical theater's version of sciencey science.

[Cooper Howell]

Ah. Anyway, yes. So he goes in front of this board and the board of trustees who have to approve of this thing, they're like, fuck, no, that's a crazy idea.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Because it's the board of governors of the insane asylum and he want. Not only does he want to do it, but he wants to experiment on the patients to make sure that it works. And they're like, absolutely, yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

You can't do that. That's unethical.

[Matt Koflik]

Spoiler alert. The show wants you to think that the board of governors are all corrupt. And they are, but also they ended up being correct.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. I mean, they're, like, doing their jobs, but they're like, kind of brats.

[Matt Koflik]

They're brats about it, but, like, they.

[Cooper Howell]

Tell them, yeah, that's like, that's a.

[Matt Koflik]

Bad idea and that's inhumane. Which. They're correct.

[Cooper Howell]

Which. Yeah, they're absolutely right.

[Matt Koflik]

The show proves that they were right.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct. So anyway, so they say no, and he's really upset and he decides that he's going to do the experiment on himself to, like, actually see if it works. And he has this fiance who is upper class and everyone's like, why are you marrying this crazy person? And she's like, I'm going to do whatever I want. I'm an independent woman. Part 2.

[Matt Koflik]

As independent as a woman in the Victorian era can.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct. Correct.

[Matt Koflik]

With. With money. Also with money.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And must be nice. And so he's like, well, I'm getting ahead of myself because he. He's talking with his friend. He's like, I'm so bummed. I can't do this experiment. And they're like, let's go to like a trashy bar on like the Lower.

[Matt Koflik]

The Lower.

[Cooper Howell]

The Lower east side or whatever. So they go and they meet this prostitute named Lucy, I guess. Sex worker. Sex worker named Lucy.

[Matt Koflik]

Let's call her what she would have been called back then. A damn dirty tramp. Yeah, but she's also like.

[Cooper Howell]

She's also a nightclub performer.

[Matt Koflik]

Is that like how that used to work? Was that like sex workers would.

[Cooper Howell]

I mean, historically, like. Yeah, like cabaret artists and actors. They were also like prostitutes and sex workers as well. Very historical England.

[Matt Koflik]

Very Nicole Kim and Moulin Rouge.

[Cooper Howell]

But like, exactly that. Nicole came in at Moulin Rouge. But like the. The caffeine free Diet Coke version of the Moulin Rouge. Yeah, it's the sleazy. What's it called?

[Matt Koflik]

The Wet Rat.

[Cooper Howell]

The Red Rat.

[Matt Koflik]

The Red Rat. I think the aesthetic is very much giving the queue line for Pirates of the Caribbean Ride.

[Cooper Howell]

And so is her outfit, honestly. Truly. And then she. She.

[Matt Koflik]

The.

[Cooper Howell]

Lucy, her name. She sings a song called Good and Evil and he's like, that gives me an idea. And so what a wonderful bit of.

[Matt Koflik]

Coincidence on the very day I'm having.

[Cooper Howell]

This moral quadrant must be fake. This.

[Matt Koflik]

This hot dog down a hallway bar. Performer.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct.

[Matt Koflik]

Singing about morality.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct. Correct. An act of God. Truly.

[Matt Koflik]

And then he asks her about it. She's like, bitch, that was a script.

[Cooper Howell]

She's like, I don't know.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know.

[Cooper Howell]

Singing a song.

[Matt Koflik]

I've got. I've got a second grade education.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. Truly. And then he gives her his card.

[Matt Koflik]

Mm.

[Cooper Howell]

It's like, if you ever need a friend or whatever. Which is.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. To raw dog you.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then he goes home, he sings the anthem of the 1992 Summer Olympics. This is the moment. And then he injects himself. And then he. He kind of goes wild and he murders everybody as Hyde. He turns it to Hyde, which is like the evil half of him, because of the experiment he does on himself. And he murders everyone on the board in one five minute number. And. And then his fiance is like, what's wrong with you? Something's going on. And meanwhile the prostitutes coming over and kisses him. Jekyll. She kisses Jekyll and she's like. She has endless numbers about him.

[Matt Koflik]

And while also, like, fucking Hyde.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Falling in love with Jekyll by day. Being fucked by Hyde at night.

[Matt Koflik]

Not knowing that they're different from the same person.

[Cooper Howell]

Which, like, the only difference between them is like, his ponytail is down. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

You Better believe Every review in 1997 was like, all that separates Jekyll and Hyde is a rubber band.

[Cooper Howell]

Ben Brantley. That cunt. His review.

[Matt Koflik]

That's a great review.

[Cooper Howell]

I'm sorry.

[Matt Koflik]

That review.

[Cooper Howell]

Suddenly his hair is down and his voice is better.

[Matt Koflik]

We will talk about this more. Ben Bradley's review is bitchy as fuck.

[Cooper Howell]

It is, but it's crazy.

[Matt Koflik]

It's also kind of accurate.

[Cooper Howell]

So he told no lies. No lies detected.

[Matt Koflik]

But 1000%. Well. Well, he's. I think he was a little harsher on Etter than she deserved in terms of her singing horse.

[Cooper Howell]

He's harsher on Etter. And also there. There are stunning things about this production. Like, the production design is actually very, very beautiful.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

I was really stunned by. By the production design and the set and, like, the panels and all that. I thought that was really, really stunning.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, I have to make sure we talk about that too, because the. We'll talk about it all. I don't recall his. He. Him hating the design so much. He was like, it was. It was representative of the tonal inconsistencies of the show.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. I just mean that, like, there are good things about it that he didn't talk about.

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, for sure, for sure, for sure. But also, like, I'm. I'm sure he just didn't want to give them any pull quotes. Right. He's like, I. There may be things he, like, begrudgingly says, Christian Noel tries to make something out of nothing of the role of Emma.

[Cooper Howell]

And I actually think there. There's a lot to Emma, but until she sings.

[Matt Koflik]

And then you're like, what are these words? But I. I appreciate them trying to not make her just a wallflower, but I do think everyone on that production team just doesn't know how. But, but, but, but, but wait.

[Cooper Howell]

Should I finish the plot first?

[Matt Koflik]

Finish the plot.

[Cooper Howell]

Okay, so we're in the middle of act two.

[Matt Koflik]

So then he's murdered all the board of governors.

[Cooper Howell]

Murdered. Murdered all the board of governors. His fiance is like, wait, what's happening to my. My man? I haven't seen him. Every time I go over, he's, like, exhausted and t.

[Matt Koflik]

And keeps drinking all this Gatorade.

[Cooper Howell]

It keeps drinking this green Gatorade.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. And, like, it seems to be covered in what can only be described as Jiffy Lubes.

[Cooper Howell]

He smells like sex worker.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know what that's about.

[Cooper Howell]

And then he murders. Eventually Hyde murders Lucy. And then he has this fierce battle with himself that's like, okay, I've gone too Far. This experiment's gone too far. But the Hyde version of him is like, no, I will take over your body forever. Muah. Ha ha. And then he, on his wedding day, he's about to get married to Emma and then Hyde comes out and he's like, no. And he like, almost kills Emma, but then he doesn't. And then he's like. Asks his friend to kill him and his friends like, no, I can't. And then he runs at the sword and kills himself. And then Emma crouches down and. And tells him that she'll always be with him. And then he dies. Essentially.

[Matt Koflik]

Essentially. Yeah. The show, for a show with nothing but power ballads. The fact that it doesn't end with a note sung.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Is actually kind of.

[Cooper Howell]

Honestly, it's fierce.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

The last 10 minutes of that show is like really fucking fierce. Really fucking.

[Matt Koflik]

I have. I have a major question about that final scene.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Pertaining to Emma and mostly like, what her inner monologue is the entire time. Because girlfriend doesn't know anything that's going on during the show. So when he changes into Hyde, I'm like, what are your thoughts right now?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Or are you just simply too thrown by what's happening?

[Cooper Howell]

Honestly, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be outside of the realm of Frank Wildhorn Land to like have everyone freeze while she's like in his clutches and she sings like a three minute ballad about like. Wait, what's going on here? Oh my gosh, is this. This is what's happening?

[Matt Koflik]

No, those lyrics are far too specific for Jekyll and Hyde. She like, everything would freeze and she would be like, I love a man and the crazy psycho and he's a man and I'm a person. Because you'll want a man to maybe cover one day too. Possibly.

[Cooper Howell]

That's true.

[Matt Koflik]

Generic. Generic. Generic. Okay, so that's all of we know of this plot.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, that's the plot.

[Matt Koflik]

I will talk about the book as well as will you and. And all the differences and how we got here in just a second. But first, let's take a quick break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Freddy's day. And we're back. Okay, so actually, would you turn right behind you, Cooper, and grab off my bookshelf. There she is. That's that slim motherfucker. Oh my God. We have here in hard copy by Robert Lewis Stevenson, the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories. This book is far too thick to just be Jekyll and Hyde. Now. Full disclosure, never read the novella. I've had this since I was 12. I. I don't know what kind of pretentious little 12 year old fucking bitch I was to ask my parents to buy me Herman Melville's Moby Dick in hardcover. As well as Jekyll and Hyde and hardcover. I also have great expectations and Phantom of the Opera and hardcover. Well, actually I might have given Phantom away. Phantom I did actually read. I read that for sixth grade by myself. Yep, I have Frankenstein and Lolita, but those aren't in hardcover. Hardcover. But I never read Jekyll and Hyde. I like couldn't bring myself to do it. I just, it did not interest me. But somebody in the Broadway breakdown, Discord Channel, which if you haven't joined, please join because that's the only way you can get your questions submitted for future episodes. And you' know when we're recording episodes because I will let you know in the Discord Channel. Just letting you know. We're almost at 200 members. It's fun. But somebody mentioned that they had read the book in school and talking about the differences and her teacher's viewpoints on both and she was like, I really appreciate that the musical has women with names, whereas there are pretty much no women in the novella.

[Cooper Howell]

None.

[Matt Koflik]

Now that's not a Frank Wildhorn Leslie Prickas development. That is something that came from when the show, the play that the movie is eventually based on. But the movie with Frederick March is what everybody knows. And the musical doesn't follow it exactly. But that dynamic is the same of him being engaged to a high society woman and then once he's Hyde going off and banging like a saloon singer. But. And, and abusing her too. And then eventually. Spoiler alert. Killing. Killing her. And the novella. How do. Have you read the novella?

[Cooper Howell]

I haven't read the novella, but I've seen the Frederick March version. I think there's a Spencer Tracy there is as well. And so I've seen both those movies.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. And there's I think a. I think a Lionel Barrymore one as well. That's. I think a silent movie. March is the one that's the most well remembered.

[Cooper Howell]

He won an Oscar for it.

[Matt Koflik]

He sure did. And also his hide looks insane.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, he's insane. Yeah, he's really good in that part.

[Matt Koflik]

But also like the makeup they do for him. He looks like a Gorilla.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, he's got monster teeth.

[Cooper Howell]

It's a true transformation, for sure.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. And the way they put it all together is very impressive. But, like, I always, as somebody who came to this musical first and, you know, all that really differentiated Jekyll and Hyde was the hair.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

To see the March one, I was like, oh, like, he's not supposed to look human at all. Like, he's really supposed to look different.

[Cooper Howell]

And honestly, like, given the. The limitations of the day, the fact that, like, his transformation is just his hair is. It's actually, like, what else were they supposed to do? And it really is impressive. Like, it's a lot of, like, Robert's physicality that he throws into it.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

So I know. I think I actually really enjoyed that.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't. I don't. I don't dislike it at all. It's. Unfortunately, it's very up to the actor to sell it.

[Cooper Howell]

Totally.

[Matt Koflik]

And you need a really good actor. What Cuccioli did and what sort of became the mold after him, and it was in Brantley's review, is like, his Jekyll is pretty much the blandest thing ever.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

With, you know, hair pulled back and just very put together. So that way he doesn't have to go that far as Hyde to differentiate. And I. I kind of get it, because for a role like that, that is such a monster.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Just in terms of, like, how much you have to do. You don't want to overblow it with Hyde, you gotta pace yourself. So, like, Brantley kind of read him for Phil for being bland as Jekyll, but then was like, he's actually pretty good as Hyde. I was like, I think that was Cuccioli, first of all. Having a year on the road with it. I mean, like, how do I. Yeah. Maintain it?

[Cooper Howell]

Looks you when you watch. So I watched the. The bootleg of the, like, the OG Cast last night specifically. And, like, you can tell that he's preserving himself a little bit. Yeah. He's, like, keeping it. I mean, before he's Hyde, he is singing so much. So much. I was amazed. Like, minute 35, he's belting his tits out in Take Me As I Am, which is, like, not an easy song for either of those actors. And I'm like, he hasn't even transformed into. And then his transformation, he sings what Am I Supposed to Do? Or whatever that song is, and then sings this is the Moment. And then transforms and does a life. Does a life like that is an insane marathon for any actor.

[Matt Koflik]

And if you can Imagine it used to be even big. More of a marathon. If you listen. If you listen to the Complete Works recording, which is. I think that's Anthony Warlow.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Because the original opener, he's. I mean, he sounds amazing. The original opener was I Need to Know because then it became Lost in the Darkness, or Lost in Darkness, whatever it's called. And then sometimes they go back and forth, depending on the production. Yeah. Like when they did the 2013 one with Constantine, I believe he went Lost in the Darkness into I Need to Know, which is insane, but I Need to Know is it's the epitome of too much energy for the task of, like. It's our introduction to Jekyll. It is this. I wouldn't even call it a banger. Just like this epic meltdown of. Of a I Want song with all of the hydraulics in the world and you're like, this is our intro. He's got to have somewhere to go.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

So I actually appreciate that they took it out and gave him something a lot softer in Lost in the Darkness. But like, imagine if your Cuccioli and that is your beginning and you're like, I've got that fucking 12 minute marathon coming up. Yeah, it's.

[Cooper Howell]

It's, it's.

[Matt Koflik]

It's. It's impossible. It's. It's give. It's very much giving. Smash. Writing all the Marilyn Monroe songs, not realizing a human being, woman, has to sing all that eight times a week.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

We wrote ourselves into a corner. But the. So the novella, all it really is is it's kind of. We were talking about this before off mic, but it's kind of a combination of Bram Stoker's Dracula meets Phantom of the Opera meets Psycho, because it's medical journals and diary entries, which is very. Dracula. Dracula, like, never really has a third person narrative.

[Cooper Howell]

No. It's like letters and. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's like someone discovered all of these papers and put them all together.

[Cooper Howell]

Another Frank Wildhorn musical.

[Matt Koflik]

Mm. More importantly, a Winona Rider film. But. But. Yes, but. But more important to our subject today, another Frank Wilder musical, but also similar to Phantom. It's like kind of a mystery of, like, what's going. All these weird things are happening and what's going on. Like, who could be behind all of this? And in Phantom of the Opera and Jekyll and Hyde, because those stories are now so famous, we know who's behind it. Also, the twist is ruined. So it's. The books are actually kind of not worth reading because, you know, where it's all going to. And like Psycho, there's the dual personality twist. So in the novella it's mostly told from the perspective of Jekyll's best friend. I already forgot his name. But the lawyer. Sorry, the solicitor.

[Cooper Howell]

Is it Utterson? Yeah, Utterson.

[Matt Koflik]

It's just in, in English parlance, especially that era, it was solicitor, but in the Broadway musical they keep calling him the lawyer.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Which I think Variety in their review was like, if you did like five seconds of dramaturgy, you would know that that's incorrect and you should like, it's like, I know it's a dumb detail, but like it's also an easy fix. Like just do it. You've been working on this show for nine years and you never once looked up what they called a lawyer in England at that time. Right. Like, like, I mean, pretty, pretty sure in the novella he calls himself a solicitor and they're like, no, but not gonna do it. But yeah, it's Utterson encountering Hyde and being like, who's this dude? And oh wait, he has connections to my friend Dr. Jekyll. That's weird. And then like Jekyll's being weird and evasive and like isn't showing up as much as he used to be, is like holding himself into his laboratory. So the whole thing is like, what's going on? And you're led to believe that they are two separate people and that Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll into something. And Jekyll like is covering this deep dark secret and nobody knows what. And then a friend of theirs who went to visit Jekyll ended up dead. And like, what's this all about? And then the twist is they're the same person, but it's not out of like Jekyll's need to like cure man. He created the serum because he had been a law abiding citizen and a very morally righteous person. But he wanted to do debaucherous things and not feel bad about it.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

So he created the serum so he could be hide and could indulge in all the vices and not feel bad.

[Cooper Howell]

And it was a sensation when it came out. It was a sensation when it came out.

[Matt Koflik]

Immediate sensation. Yeah. The stage adaptation came out like later that year in 1888 and the stage version actually had to get cut short because that was when Jack the Ripper started coming to town. Yeah. And people were terrified.

[Cooper Howell]

That's right.

[Matt Koflik]

And also like every actor who's playing Jekyll and Hyde on stage became a suspect because of they didn't. Like, they had no clues, so they shut down production until Ripper was caught or the killing stopped.

[Cooper Howell]

Did you hear that? They think it was someone that worked for Queen Victoria that ended up being Jack the Ripper. No.

[Matt Koflik]

What? What's that? What's that theory?

[Cooper Howell]

I mean, I got. I got it from my favorite murder, another podcast, so I don't wanna. I'll just direct you to that, but please do. Yeah, I know I have. No, I don't want to. Don't say anything.

[Matt Koflik]

Sorry, your mic is being weird. Hold on.

[Cooper Howell]

Hello? Can you hear me?

[Matt Koflik]

I think everyone can hear you just fine, baby.

[Cooper Howell]

Great.

[Matt Koflik]

Yes, baby. That's an inch. Okay, I'm gonna look that up. My favorite murder for Jack the Ripper, because, I mean, that's like the ultimate cold case.

[Cooper Howell]

Exactly. Yeah. It had to be someone who just, like, completely got away with it, and they had, like, the ability to get away with it.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, well, and I think they. And they said it had to be somebody of higher standing because this is the only way they were able to do it. But the point is, is. Yeah, the novella, huge sensation.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Becomes a stage show. Stage show is where we launch into Jekyll having a fiance. I don't know if the saloon singer is in the stage show or if they added that for the film, but I mean, the whole reason they remember.

[Cooper Howell]

The saloon singer in the film. In both films.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Because it's Miriam Hopkins in the Frederick March version.

[Cooper Howell]

And it's Lana. Is it Lana Turner? It's like either Lana Turner or Ingrid Bergman in the Spencer Tracy version.

[Matt Koflik]

It sounds like you might be Ingrid.

[Cooper Howell]

Bergman, but I think it's Ingrid Bergman.

[Matt Koflik]

I mean, listen, girlfriend has a history with being in works with gaslights, am I right?

[Cooper Howell]

That's true.

[Matt Koflik]

Mm.

[Cooper Howell]

Very true.

[Matt Koflik]

I'll look that up as we. As we keep talking. But it became part of the culture vernacular, the high tier Jekyll. But the reason why they added the fiance to the stage version, and then as. As well as the saloon singer, it wasn't out of like, oh, we need romance. They were kind. They were like, there are no women in the. In the novella. And we really don't want any talks of, like, possible queerness, because that's one of the themes that over time, people have talked more about with Jekyll and Hyde. Have, like, repressed homosexuality.

[Cooper Howell]

That's so interesting.

[Matt Koflik]

Repressed urges. Yeah. And especially because there are no women in the novella. So the stage version, it was like, well, we have to have some heteronormativity to it like he has a fiance. And also just you add romance. Because there are a lot of people who want romance in their shows, no matter what.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

It was Ingrid Bergman. Lana Turner played Beatrix, who I assume is the fiance.

[Cooper Howell]

The fiance, yeah. So.

[Matt Koflik]

So you were actually right on both counts.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

Guys, when in doubt, Cooper Howells, right?

[Cooper Howell]

Heck, yeah. Heck yeah, baby. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But, yeah, so that's. That became the model for that story from then on was like, Dr. Jekyll with a fiance has this thing with this sex worker and, like, back and forth. But it's not in the stage show or in the movies. It's never a love triangle because Ivy is terrified of Hyde. She's like, she's being abused and tormented by him.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And she doesn't know Jekyll. She only knows Hyde.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

So there's no love triangle. The musicals, what made it kind of a love triangle, and in my opinion, a bad one at that. Yeah. So let's. Let's just fucking get into it.

[Cooper Howell]

Let's get into it.

[Matt Koflik]

Let's get into it.

[Cooper Howell]

Because so many thoughts.

[Matt Koflik]

So many thoughts. Well, because the only way to kind of talk about the. What led us to the stage musical and the Broadway stuff and all the changes is just to sort of talk about the show and talk about all those changes that went on with it, because, by God, many a change.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Continually.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah. I think. I think. Should we start with positive, negatives, Anything.

[Matt Koflik]

Which I don't think. Whatever comes to mind, because I do have positives. You have negatives. I have a lot of. What the fuck's.

[Cooper Howell]

Let me. Let me start with the positives.

[Matt Koflik]

Sure.

[Cooper Howell]

First of all, I mean, you. You explain what your. Your. Your overall feeling of Jekyll and Hyde is. That's not a very good musical.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't think it's very good.

[Cooper Howell]

And I also think it's not a very good musical, but I find it wildly entertaining. There are some moments in Jekyll and Hyde again, the last 10 minutes, like the confrontation song through the wedding, through him killing himself, and Emma's, like, singing to him like, that is an amazing, very electric ending, you know, and there's not a lot of musicals that end on just, like, pure tragedy like that. I can think of, like, you know, Miss Saigon that has sort of like that big, like, sacrificial, like, no kind of ending. And it sticks with you, you know, and confrontation. I mean, when you get. Jekyll and Hyde is an amazing role for a Broadway tenor. And because it's as much of an Acting piece as it is a singing marathon. And you get someone who can really like make something of Jekyll and really make us like buy into him and love him and like, want to follow his journey. And then someone who can switch it and be terrifying as Hyde, you know, it's. It's an amazing, amazing, amazing role for a man. The songs are bops. They are bops. I like Take Me as I Am specifically. That's like the first song in the show that is like, okay, here we go. This is a song. Song, you know, you could tell that Frank Wildhorn wrote for Whitney Houston. Has this like this big, you know there. It's big. It's huge. And like someone like you. What a fucking classic that is. Oh my gosh. Bring on the men. What a fucking classic that is. This is the moment. I mean, it was like used for, like, wasn't it used for Bill Clinton's.

[Matt Koflik]

I think for the dnc, for the Democratic.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Olympics. And the Olympics and.

[Matt Koflik]

And Miss America.

[Cooper Howell]

I think it was used Miss America. I mean, it just like is such an anthem. Yeah. Everything Lucy sings is so iconic. I mean, a new life. What a song. In his Eyes. What a song. Dangerous Game. What a song. The music is amazing. And Linda Etter is like an all timer. I mean, that is.

[Matt Koflik]

Linda Etter's voice on the Jekyll and Hyde score is shit. Yeah. It's one of those things where it is unworldly. How could she sound?

[Cooper Howell]

My God. Yeah, it. Especially watching the bootlegs too of her sing it.

[Matt Koflik]

How consistent she sounds.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. She has that type of voice where you feel so safe because you, you know she's gonna give you the good. So like when she stands up off the floor in someone like you and there's a key change, you immediately get chills already because you know she's gonna hit those notes, honey. And she does. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

There are, there are some singers where. Or so I say there are certain scores where I need a little bit of vocal danger. For example, Evita.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Why I like patty. Coked out 29 year old Patty, the one doing that role is because there's like a little danger to it. The notes always do come out and.

[Cooper Howell]

They sound great, but it adds authenticity to it.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Jekyll and Hyde. It's not as weird of a score as Evita is. It's much more purified. It's Phantom Light. But so you need that Linda at her control.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

As everything just sounds.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Fluid and easy.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And I'm Sure. Like, you know, that takes a lot of talent and a lot of craft.

[Cooper Howell]

But she's a freak of nature.

[Matt Koflik]

She really is. And I was talking to a friend about this yesterday, and he was like, she has this. He said to me, she has this really incredible mix belt where. Yeah, it's like the higher she goes, it's not really. It's not a chess. Chess belt. But she is so in control of percentages. She can make it sound like a full belt.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. But because it's exactly what Stephanie J. Block does. It's the same vocal technique, but Linda's tone is like, much.

[Matt Koflik]

It's not as heavy as sjv. SJV does a very heavy sound.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

And I think also the interesting thing is because of when Jekyll and Hyde came out, Linda Etter was sort of the anomaly of a principal and that kind of show. So, like, Jekyll is kind of. It's not the end. I would say probably Sideshow Slash Parade are the end of the American version of the mega musical.

[Cooper Howell]

Right, right.

[Matt Koflik]

Because with, like, Cats and Evita and Phantom, we have a specific kind of sound that's coming to Broadway. Like big epic music and, like, sweeping.

[Cooper Howell]

Cinematic and heavy singing. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like the singing that comes from the vajayjay in all of us. Man, woman and in between.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And Broadway composers, some of them, not all of them. Like Cy Coleman's like, I want out. But everyone else was like, let's lean in and, like, do those big epic ballads and have the really heavy singing. So we have our ragtimes, our sideshows, our parades, our Jekyll and Hyde, our Titanics, and, you know, for every Alice Ripley, Emily Skinner leaving blood on the floor in Sideshow. Audra and Marin leaving placenta on the floor in Ragtime. Linda's like, why would I do that? She's like, look at me float.

[Cooper Howell]

It looks so easy.

[Matt Koflik]

It's still powerful, but it floats.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. It's so good. And that is a sing.

[Matt Koflik]

It is a sing.

[Cooper Howell]

It is like, you know, if you're doing a production of Jekyll and Hyde, the people that are playing Jekyll, Hyde and Lucy, they have to be just like freaks of nature.

[Matt Koflik]

They really are.

[Cooper Howell]

Because Lucy sings so much and it's so belty and it's full 4 and a half minute long songs that end on a very long sustained note.

[Matt Koflik]

You know, Emma's also kind of secretly hard because.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

Because it. You're not belting as Emma. You are doing mix soprano, but you're not allowed to do classic. It is a. It's like a Liz Calloway mix. And that's. It's really hard to sustain that because when you get higher, you want to go to a more powerful, operatic place to support. So, like, to do the high notes of In His Eyes to go really light up there.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I was watching Christiane Noel and Linda Etter reunite for a Linda Etter concert, like, in 2013 for that song. And they're, like, talking about the song right before they lead up to it, and they're like, this is the only time we ever got to share the stage together. And Linda's like, oh, and we're on the wrong sides of the stage, too. I love that Linda didn't remember what side of the stage she was supposed to be on. And they're like. And we're wearing shoes. So I don't know how to sing this with shoes on, but. Right. But Christiane was like. I don't know. This is, like, the one part of the show that was fun for us because, like, everything else was always us being serious with Bob, and, like, this is us just being like.

[Cooper Howell]

Like, correct.

[Matt Koflik]

Like.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's a hard saying, but you also get to be like. It's.

[Cooper Howell]

I think In His Eyes is the MVP vocal track of the show. I mean, it is. Yeah. So good.

[Matt Koflik]

It's. I think it is the secret mvp. So I brought a poll to Instagram last night in preparation for our episode, where I also screenshotted and shared our exchange the night before.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

Where you're like, what's the vibe? Are we. Are we praising her? Making fun of her? What are we doing? And I just was.

[Cooper Howell]

Because it could go either way. But this is why I wanted to do positives first, because I have. I have some notes.

[Matt Koflik]

But also, what was my response? You're like, are we doing this? Are we doing this?

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

Yes. We're doing all of it. I did a poll and I said, y', all, what is your go to Jekyll and Hyde? Shower belt.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Because I. This is a score where. I'm not gonna tell you. It is a good musical scene theater score. And I'll tell. I'll talk about that. Why. In a second.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure. But. But taking the songs apart individually.

[Matt Koflik]

Yes.

[Cooper Howell]

To say that as singles, per se.

[Matt Koflik]

Exactly. There are things about it that are worthwhile.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And it's the dichotomy. It's the. Sorry. It's the contrast of me saying. Saying, this is not a good musical theater score, but this is an enjoy. This is a very singable score.

[Cooper Howell]

Totally.

[Matt Koflik]

And that is sort of how it lives on. It lives on for me in the shower.

[Cooper Howell]

Totally.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm gonna sit here and talk to you about the crazy banal banality. Banality of the lyrics of Someone like you. And also tell you I sang it 20 times in a row yesterday.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, my mom was out of the apartment for an hour.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And I was so knee deep in research for this. And I was like, I just can't listen to Facade anymore. And then. And then I was like, you know what I am going to do, though? Go into the bathroom where it has the best acoustics, find the perfect key for the song on YouTube and sing it 20 times in a row. Because I want to.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And that's. That is the drug. That is Jekyll Hyde. But so, yeah, I did this. I did this poll and I said, what is your go to shower belt? And I said, this is it. This is the moment. Someone like you in his eyes or confrontation. Little asterisk being like, that's your different kind of shower masturbation.

[Cooper Howell]

But.

[Matt Koflik]

And then, of course, people are like, where's Bring on the Men? Where's Dangerous Game? Where's a new Life? I'm like, you only get four options on Instagram. I'm sorry.

[Cooper Howell]

But that's. That's the thing about Juggler Night is that, like, you. There are. There are like, 10, 11, 12 bops, like, bops in it, which is more than every single new musical that came out last year on Broadway. You know what I mean? Like. Like there hasn't been a score this singable with this many. I keep using bops like I'm a Gen Z. But, like, it's true. It's true, though. It's so, so good.

[Matt Koflik]

If so, I would say there's a litmus test, and I'll reveal the results in just a second. But there's a litmus test. I feel like when. If you are. Let's say you're on a first date with somebody and they reveal themselves to also be a theater person. And you go, okay, you're at a karaoke and you have to sing a song from Jekyll and Hyde. What do you sing? All right, that reveals a lot to you about said person. If they say to you, I can't pick one. Like, the whole score is too good. That's me going, okay, I don't think we're gonna have any conversations about Nietzsche because. Because you can enjoy that score and. And be an intelligent person. That intelligence allows you to go. I enjoy a lot of that score. But, like, this is my go to. Like, you make that Sophie's choice pretty easily because you've thought about it. If you say, why would I pick a single song? That whole show is trash. I'm like, oh, you're no fun.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, oh, I don't want to go to a drunken Barbie screening with you at Alamo Drafthouse. You're no fun. You want someone in the middle, and whatever song they choose, that's a whole other story. And that becomes a whole other rabbit hole to dissect. But, like, I don't know. So the. The poll that we have, the number one with a bullet was someone like you.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, of course, Avi. Of course.

[Matt Koflik]

It's too singable not to.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Number two was in his eyes.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's a little far behind. We have 43. 43% of the vote is.

[Cooper Howell]

That's what I would choose for karaoke. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

29% is in his eyes. I mean, obviously, you need.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, I would take. I take my drunken friend up with me.

[Matt Koflik]

Exactly.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And depending on how warm you are that day, I'm like, am I Emma or am I Lucy? I don't know, because how. What note do I want to hit at the end?

[Cooper Howell]

Well, I'd like pull my button up, shirt down past my. My shoulders.

[Matt Koflik]

Show those bare shoulders.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, right. See, the thing is, Kirsten Ivins.

[Matt Koflik]

Coward.

[Cooper Howell]

Just kidding. Gross.

[Matt Koflik]

I. The thing is that, like, I'm a. I'm a Lucy in this in the streets and Emma in the sheets.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm. I'm a.

[Cooper Howell]

You're a. You're an Emma in the sheets. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm virginal, demure, and boring as hell.

[Cooper Howell]

I'm a John Utterson in the sheets and a. What's his name? Spiderman. Wait, no. I'm a John Utterson in the streets and a Spider in the. What's his name? The one Spider.

[Matt Koflik]

The pimp. Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. He's like you. You're late again, and I'll stab you or something, like, really unfair with my penis. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Also, I didn't know we were allowed to talk about other characters, because in.

[Cooper Howell]

That case, I mean, I am.

[Matt Koflik]

I am the board of governors in this sheets, and I'm that underage prostitute at the end of act one in the street.

[Cooper Howell]

I see. Because I'm the soloist on the final facade where they're carrying Lut Lucy's body out in the streets.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm Kelly Oharas solo in Murder Murder. She goes, he'll kill at will.

[Cooper Howell]

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

[Matt Koflik]

For those of you who don't know, Kelly o' Hara made her Broadway debut in the ensemble of Jekyll and Hyde after being on the tour for a year and a half. And she's in the Hasselhoff recording.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

She has two solos. One in Facade, where she actually sounds really good. She's belting. And then she has one more solo in Murder, Murder, where her face looks so disinterested, she's a little under.

[Cooper Howell]

And. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Podmother Ali Gord and I talk about it all the time. We're like, listen, even the mighty have moments.

[Cooper Howell]

Of course she's human.

[Matt Koflik]

It's like when I saw She's Human when I saw Newsies the night before the Tonys and Jeremy Jordan cracked on the Santa Fe reprise.

[Cooper Howell]

And I was like, hard song.

[Matt Koflik]

And by that point, he was like, you know.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

He was tired. I was like. He was going through his Tony schedule, but I was like, listen, the mighty have moments.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, Everyone.

[Matt Koflik]

Everyone have them. And so just Kelli o' Hara going, he'll kill that will. Like, also, that girl was in final callbacks for Follies at Roundabout. She's like, I'm out of this in a minute.

[Cooper Howell]

Like, get me out of here.

[Matt Koflik]

Get me out. It was very. Get me out of here. The vibe she had.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But it was interesting that in his eyes was number two. I assumed that it would be. This is the moment. You know what's. What's frustrating to me about the role of Jekyll and Hyde, because you're right, it is a very meaty role.

[Cooper Howell]

Phenomenal role for an actor. It is.

[Matt Koflik]

Crack, musical theater crack for the most insufferable straight men.

[Cooper Howell]

You know, of course. Of course.

[Matt Koflik]

They all want to go for it.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And you're like, no, you're. You are the wrong. You're the person I don't want in this.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

You're the person who takes it too seriously.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Think thinks of yourself too much as a stud.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And I, like. I don't. I want you away from this.

[Cooper Howell]

It's hard because the actor playing Jekyll Hyde almost has to be an actor first and a singer second. But it's such a huge thing that. That, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

You can't ignore them.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Again, that. Like freaks of nature, you know, they have. They have to be a true freak of nature. I think there's a ton of men on Broadway now that could do it. Oh, yeah. Real, real Justice.

[Matt Koflik]

After seeing him in Sweeney, I would love to see Nick Christopher do it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I think he'd be awesome.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Now he's about to play Seymour. I'm like, God, must all the hot men play Seymour?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. That is pretty fascinating. But a lot of those Seymour. A lot of that Seymour cast, like, I. I think Jeremy Jordan would be an excellent Jekyll Hyde.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Especially after seeing Gatsby, because Jekyll's kind of Gatsby coded. Yeah. You know, I wonder. I want to see him have fun. And really, like. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I wonder if I would have preferred Jeremy pre newsies or now to play Jekyll, because pre newsies, he had a little something to prove. And now he's sort of like, I have. I. My fans are keeping great Gatsby afloat, which is a big.

[Cooper Howell]

I think Jeremy would. I think I haven't seen him have, like, a lot of fun, like. Like an actor needs to have when they're playing Hyde, you know, I would love to see how he plays, like, the evil, big stuff, you know? Like, Jeremy's version of Alive would probably be really athletic. He's a very athletic performer, too. So I think it'd be really interesting to see him do that.

[Matt Koflik]

Maybe he'll have fun in that cave in the spring. Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And maybe that's all we'll say about her. For sure. Yeah, it'd be interesting. Who would be a Lucy for you?

[Cooper Howell]

I honestly. Okay, so this is a great segue into some of my notes that I have because. Thank God. Because I feel like Lucy. My overall problem with Jekyll and Hyde is that the book is bad. It has a bad book. And in order for a musical to be good. And I've said this to you before, that, like, the one thing that every musical needs to prioritize and the one thing that every bad musical has in common is a bad book. If the book of a musical isn't good, then the show isn't good. Like the book, the book has to be established immediately. And I feel like with a lot of Frank Wildhorn properties, he finds a story and then writes all the music first and then brings a book writer in to sort of connect the dots between the songs. And you could definitely feel that in Jekyll and Hyde, you know, Scarlet Pimpernel is the same way. Song of Bernadette, Bonnie and Clyde, Count of Monte Crisco, Dracula, Civil War, definitely. Like, they're all the same. Where you could tell the music was written first and then the book was second. And that Poor book writer has to sort of just like, figure out creative ways to go from one way or the other.

[Matt Koflik]

You know, the irony also, by the way, is that with Jekyll and Hyde and Scarlett Pimpernel, the book writers were nominated for both of those shows and Frank was not sure. And it's crazy because I agree. I think the books are bad for both of those shows. The scores are better, if not necessarily amazing.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

But it's just.

[Cooper Howell]

But they have to do a lot of work. They do it. They're doing a lot. A lot of work. And the problem with Lucy is.

[Matt Koflik]

She.

[Cooper Howell]

Has what I call the Eponine effect, where if you took Lucy's character out of Jekyll and Hyde completely, the show would be much quicker. And her story doesn't actually add anything to the plot at all. And the thing about Frank Wildhorn musicals in general as well is the plot stops so that someone can sing like it stops cold so that someone can sing a four and a half minute ballad about what?

[Matt Koflik]

Someone like you.

[Cooper Howell]

Someone like you. And you can attach someone like you to. Those lyrics are not specifically Lucy at all. They're just so sort of open and broad that, like, it's. That it doesn't feel like it's actually moving her forward.

[Matt Koflik]

No. The lyrics are literally, if someone like you found someone like me then suddenly nothing would ever be.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. My heart would take wing and I feel so alive. Like, it could be attached to any character at any time.

[Matt Koflik]

Nothing is actually. And nothing has actually happened in the plot for that song.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And she doesn't learn anything.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. The.

[Matt Koflik]

This. A lot of the songs, which is what makes them pop standards, which makes it so single out of context, is they are one statement songs.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

That the only change is the key at the end.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Yep.

[Matt Koflik]

That makes them exciting to sing.

[Cooper Howell]

And it's again, four and a half minutes of the same sentiment. Like, do we need the plot of Jekyll and Hyde to stop so that Lucy can sing for four and a half minutes about giving us a laundry list of things that she might do with a new life? Like, we don't need it. And that's. That's what Lucy is to me. Like, every time Lucy sings, she stops the plot and there is no point to what she's singing. We don't need to hear her sing Sympathy Tenderness. We don't need to hear Dangerous Game. We already got basically that we. We don't really need in. We don't really need In His Eyes. We don't need that song at All.

[Matt Koflik]

Okay. Okay. So I. I have a lot of. I actually have a lot of thoughts about in his Eyes, dramatically speaking. All kind of negative. And I will talk about that in a second because while we were also talking about, like, the epic singingness of it, like, oh, my God, I would totally sing it. Yeah, okay. I'm agreeing with everything you're saying. Yeah. Losing all this stuff. I also want to just point out, I love the dramatic irony of Lucy belting her tits off for four and a half minutes about getting a new life, and 90 seconds later, she eats it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Which is also an amazing dramatic moment, you know, But. But Lucy's character literally, like. Like could take. You could take a red pen and just. Red pen. Her entire character plot, all of her songs, everything. You could cut her. Because Emma is important to the plot.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Emma actually serves the plot. And her sort of journey through the plot of Jekyll Hyde is actually much more interesting. And you can tell that Frank Wildhorn, who later married Linda Etter, you could tell that he was obsessed with her talent. And her part just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. I mean, on the complete works, the gothic thriller, there's. She has, like, so much music. So much music that she's singing. And really, it almost turns Jekyll and Hyde into a story about. About Lucy. It. Like, in all the posters, too. Like, in the completed works, it's Linda Etter, like, below Jekyll and Hyde, and he looks like a knife. Or like in the. The Broadway version, Linda Etter and the guy and Robert, like, right behind her. So. So they blew this part up and Linda Etter killed it. And she's also a phenomenal actress, too, I thought. I mean, she was so good in that part.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm not. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that she's phenomenal as an actress. What I will tell you is that she's a better actress than she gets credit for, because the narrative. That's true, the narrative of her is that she's an amazing singer and a terrible actress. I don't think she's terrible.

[Cooper Howell]

I don't think she's terrible.

[Matt Koflik]

I think she's very charming.

[Cooper Howell]

I think she's charming, and she adds a lot of nuance and authenticity to a part that doesn't necessarily even need to be in the show in the first place.

[Matt Koflik]

Is her accent work atrocious? Absolutely. But so is Annaleigh Ashford's, and we keep casting her as British, so, like. So I don't know what the difference is.

[Cooper Howell]

So for me casting Lucy for today, I. It would need to be a person who could make Lucy feel like she was necessary to the plot.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Someone who is also an actor first, you know, who could really, like, add. Add a layer to Lucy that makes me go, like, while I'm in, like, minute three of a new life, I could be, like, actually caring about her, you know, not to.

[Matt Koflik]

Not to go back to the Gatsby wall, but, like, maybe someone like Ava. Eva Noblezada.

[Cooper Howell]

I think Ava would be great. Ava. Ava to me reads really young.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Which I think is kind of disturbing for Lucy, so that's kind of interesting.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, it's a. It's a whole new level. Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

And again, like, Joy woods is brought up for everyone for, like, you know, she should be cast as the next president at this point. But, like, the thing that blew me away about Joy in the Notebook is that her character doesn't really get anything to do until the end. Ish. Of act one. But every time she was on stage, she just felt so imbued with intention, you know. She is also a very good actress, so I feel like she'd be a great Lucy. Yeah. I don't know.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

It's tricky.

[Matt Koflik]

I think that.

[Cooper Howell]

Very tricky.

[Matt Koflik]

I think Lucy is ultimately such a. You know what? We'll talk about the Lucy of it all in just a second. But first, let's take another break.

[Cooper Howell]

Yay.

[Matt Koflik]

Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the. The feet. And we're back. So.

[Cooper Howell]

Hello.

[Matt Koflik]

Hello. So the thing about. Let me. Let me. Actually, I'm going to start with In His Eyes and work outwards from there as we talk about Lucy and the Emma of it all. Because while this version of the story do have two women with names.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Ultimately one is, as you said, not really important to the plot at all. The other one, while she's, technically speaking important to the plot, she doesn't really have any motives beyond I love my fiance and I don't know what's going on.

[Cooper Howell]

Their characters are both very flat.

[Matt Koflik]

Yes. Emma is purity. Lucy isn't even sin. She's just like a fallen angel who's trying to rise up. It is very eponine coded.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. You can remove eponine. Who the Francis. What's her name?

[Matt Koflik]

Rafael.

[Cooper Howell]

Who was. Wasn't she married to.

[Matt Koflik]

She got married to the director.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. It's like the same situation where Eponine has all of this whatever, and you could take her out of the plot and it would probably be, I think.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, with Eponine, with Les Mis. What I will at least say is, first of all, she's in the novel, so we, we got to honor her.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And I think thematically she's important to the show, if not ne. Like that's. But Lamez is also a show where you're like, you could absolutely do an 85 minute version of the story.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

It's like, it would be quick, right. It would not be as moving.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Jekyll and Hyde.

[Cooper Howell]

You're right. You're very correct.

[Matt Koflik]

Jekyll and Hyde, to your point, like, the original story is a very slim novella and then was made into like an hour and 40 minute movie in the 1930s. And now with this version, it's a two hour and 20 minute musical. There's a lot of padding where songs don't move anything along. The only song that really moves plot along is murder.

[Cooper Howell]

Murder.

[Matt Koflik]

And oh boy, will we talk about her?

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah, we will talk about her. It's a nightmare in the night air one, right? It's a right scare, that's for sure.

[Matt Koflik]

Listen, the two. One, the one that people really love to say is to kill outside St. Paul's requires a lot of balls.

[Cooper Howell]

Which.

[Matt Koflik]

Which Jekyll and Hyde defenders. The fandom's name is Jeky's, by the way. Which.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

I didn't remember that. And as I was doing my research, I was like, oh, like, like Trekkie. That's actually kind of cute. Yeah, but they're like, no, that's meant to be like, can't be clever. Like, the original production was too serious with the umbrellas. Like it used to be more gossipy and funny. I was like, I don't. I'm sure they meant it like with a light wink, like, yeah, Thrilla in Manila. But with Diana, Camilla was not meant to be a serious lyric. But because of the show and the context, like, the whole thing just doesn't jive.

[Cooper Howell]

It has to me. Jekyll and Hyde has the same problem as Diana, where it's like, is it camp or are you taking it seriously? If you're taking it seriously and this is a gothic thriller, it needs to be way more thrilling and way more gothic and way more scary than it is.

[Matt Koflik]

From what I've been told from people who were working at the time when Jekyll and Hyde was coming to Broadway, they wanted to take. Be taken Very seriously. That is why they went through this whole production team overhaul between the pre Broadway tryout and Broadway and woof.

[Cooper Howell]

The changes that they made from that pre Broadway tryout to Broadway are extreme.

[Matt Koflik]

Extreme. There are some that I think are actually really good and some that are maybe more questionable. I'm in the camp that is actually. So this all goes to Lucy. This is all coming back to Lucy, I swear. So in his eyes is Lucy and Emma both singing about Jekyll and, like, their love for him and the love they see in his eyes. Lucy has had two scenes with Jekyll, both in Act 1. She hasn't been with him since. She'll never be with him again. Yeah, the first scene she has with him isn't even like, we're falling in love. It's.

[Cooper Howell]

It's very sexless, pedestrian. Hey, how are you?

[Matt Koflik]

Exactly, like, she's. She. And she goes over there because she's told to, like, oh, that. That classy doctor is having eyes at you. Go sit at the table. And then he's just like, tell me about your song. She's like, I don't know, it was a script. He's like, okay, well, here's a card if you ever need help.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And like, he shows her some kindness. And so that's why she comes back. Because eventually the Hyde stuff, which I also get into, but this, the scene that's supposed to be. That's where Lucy falls in love with him, is she goes to get treated for an injury that Hyde has given her. Jekyll treats her like that's all he does that. He treats the wound. And she's like, well, the softness in his face makes me feel things you're saying. Sympathy, tenderness. She kisses him, then kisses him. He walk, he runs out. Does not, like, reciprocate. Like, oh, my God, this thing. He just runs out and she sings, someone like you, and that's the end of it. So in His Eyes to me, makes no sense. Just because she has spent so little time with him. And of the. Of the little time she spent with him, 20% of it was romantic on her side.

[Cooper Howell]

Right?

[Matt Koflik]

And she sings of his eyes and all these feelings she has for him. Like, they've spent a history together, like Emma has.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

But also, I don't know why the song exists other than, like, for Emma, it could possibly make sense in terms.

[Cooper Howell]

Of what it makes sense for Emma.

[Matt Koflik]

Like what? Because as an audience, you're like, why are you sticking around while your fiance is, like, clearly dissolving before your eyes? So she's like, in his eyes should be Emma's song alone.

[Cooper Howell]

But we already got that sentiment from Emma when she was singing what's at work. He loves his work and nothing more.

[Matt Koflik]

His work and nothing more. You're work on nothing more. And also, Once Upon a Dream, a song that also means nothing. But there was. There's another song called Once Upon a Dream. It's in Disney. It makes more sense because she's literally talking about a dream she had. Whereas in Jekyll and Hyde, she's like, my darling, I don't understand what's happening. You're falling away from me. Once upon a dream.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I thought about you and I. Yeah. And now that dream is fading. But what is happening? And then he runs out and she's like, well, in his eyes, like, it's dramatically speaking. Like, the fuck are we doing here?

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

But musically speaking, because music is such a chemical response. We hear these two amazing voices blend in such a way and build. These songs have great musical builds, even if they're not. Even if musically they are also repetitive. There's a chemically good build to them. So we enjoy it, but it ends and we're like, but what happened?

[Cooper Howell]

It sounds like In His Eyes sounds like a song that Frank Wildhorn wrote, not for this show, and was like, oh, I have this song in my catalog that would work really well here.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, it's. It's. It's compared a lot to In Lucy's Eyes from Secret Garden. And both were probably written around the same time.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Or what's that song from Chess that the Two Girls.

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, I Know him so well.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, it's very that.

[Matt Koflik]

And I Know him so well actually is a great song because it is two women who love the same man who have very different histories.

[Cooper Howell]

And in the book, like, the book of Chess, like the. The. The script of it, it makes so much sense for those two characters in Chess to sing it. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And you know. Yeah, absolutely.

[Cooper Howell]

It's like a fine. You can have this guy, whatever, you know?

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. And like. And both of them talking about their frustration. Their frustration. And they're very specific and real relationships with this man. Lucy doesn't have a relationship with Jekyll. He doesn't express any kind of love for her. The only inkling we get that he has any feelings towards her is the fact that once he turns into Hyde, the first thing that Hyde goes and does is find Lucy and bang her.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It actually reminds me a bit of have you seen Crazy Stupid Love?

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. Which should Be a musical.

[Matt Koflik]

There's a lot of work that needs to be done on the script, but. Yeah, it should. It would be a really fun one.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Really fun one. It's hard to tell if that movie works as well as it does because the actors are good or if, like, the script itself is good.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But it's. I remember seeing and really liking it.

[Cooper Howell]

But.

[Matt Koflik]

Emma Stone in an early scene is out drinking and Ryan Gosling hits on her. And, like, clearly there's energy, but she's too much of a, like, good girl to do anything. And then I forget exactly what happens, but something with Josh Groban happens that just, like, breaks her. So she goes out into the rain, goes back to the bar, finds Ryan Gosling.

[Cooper Howell]

That is Josh Groban, huh? Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And she goes, you. And she immediately runs up to Ryan Gosling and starts sucking face.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

That is very Jekyll and Hyde. Hyde. Like, the first thing Hyde does is bang Lucy. So that gives us an indication that there is a part of Jekyll that, when he met Lucy, was like, I really want to, but. But society and my morality won't let me.

[Cooper Howell]

That's another thing I've been thinking of, too, is that, like. Like, if. If Emma and Lucy are supposed to represent the two sides of. Of, like, good and evil. Like, so Emma's good and Lucy's evil. Are we saying that, like, that sex work is, like, evil, evil and morally repugnant?

[Matt Koflik]

And I think that's what the 90s are saying.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Yeah. Which is very interesting to watch through a today's lens.

[Matt Koflik]

But they also want to have their cake and eat it, too, by making Lucy's death feel tragic. So she's like the hooker with a heart of gold.

[Cooper Howell]

She's the hooker with a heart of gold who gets her comeuppance.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, yeah. It's the. As Gerard says in Forbidden Broadway, Naughty Girls, who deserved it. Right?

[Cooper Howell]

It's like in the old days of movies, in the Hays Code, it was like any woman who had an affair had to die at the end of the movie. It was like, part of, like, Hollywood's, like, thing that they had to do.

[Matt Koflik]

Absolutely.

[Cooper Howell]

See Elizabeth Taylor in the movie Butterfield 8, where she has that. That insane car crash death at the end. You and I need to do that call girl.

[Matt Koflik]

You and I need to do that Forbidden Broadway Swan Lakes parody. Because, like, we are so in sync right now.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Matt Koflik]

But that's actually the interesting thing about the Frederick March Jekyll and Hyde is that it was made pre Hays Code.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

So she's like, she's not a sex worker. She's a saloon singer. And the movie is actually much more carnal in its sexuality. And they're also that much more respectful towards her and treat her truly like a victim. This, like, with. With. With that Jekyll and Hyde. This is not a naughty girl who deserved it. This is an unfortunate girl who got targeted. And, like, there was no way out of this relationship. Then death. You watch Miriam Hopkins just get tormented, and you watch the psychological toll takes.

[Cooper Howell]

Which I wish we kind of saw a little bit more in this. And that would make Lucy's character, I think, add to what they were trying to say more.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, because then you don't know what the point of any of it is. She says supposedly has the carnal connection with Hyde. That's the whole point of Dangerous Game, I assume. But also when you realize that once they took out Lucy meets Hyde scene from the tour, which in some respects, I'm glad they took out, because we don't really need to have her meet Hyde.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And in there, she's like, ooh, I kind of like how you're approaching me.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. She's like. Like, you're a. You're a beast. But also, I kind of like it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Whereas in the Broadway version, and Alive ends with him grabbing her and, like, that's all blackout, and that's all we need to know.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I think that's a very effective use of musical theater storytelling.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

But on the other end, by cutting that scene, they only have two scenes together. Hyde and Lucy. Like, she's got two scenes of chuckle in Act 12 with Hyde and Act 2. And by that point, like, we're supposed to just assume that they have this history, and it's up to the actors to sell it. And it's just not enough.

[Cooper Howell]

It's not enough.

[Matt Koflik]

You have Dangerous Game where, like, the entire scene she is terrified. And then they do the number. And the whole point is where she's like, I'm terrified, but also, my God, am I wet? And it's. And make. But it makes. It makes no sense to me. And she's never. It. Also there. I wish there was a scene with. With her and Jekyll about Hyde, her not knowing that he's Hyde and being like, he. Like, he terrifies me. But also, like, I don't know. In this weird way, like, I kind of like it, and I hate myself for liking it.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

It would give Jekyll more incentive to want to Be Hyde and go off and.

[Cooper Howell]

And hang out again. The plot in his eyes through Dangerous game is, like, 10, 12 minutes where the plot, like, stops. Like, everyone is sharing the same sentiments that they've already shared in another song before. And they're bops. They're such great songs. But I kind of. I kind of wish Dangerous Game. This goes to my. My second huge problem with the script of Jekyll and Hyde is that they're all. There is no nuance to it at all. There's no complexity to it. It's almost like a Star wars level of, like, this is good and this is evil. And I kind of wish that Dangerous Game was a song between Hyde and Emma that, like, we can get. Cause there is an opportunity to have both of these women actually make sense with sort of like, Eponine and Les Mis. She's part of the ensemble of characters that experience misery in France. And so she, like, adds to the theme. And you could really play with, like, the complexity of what is good and evil. So, like, Lucy, like, trying to be good. And maybe Emma having an affair with Hyde and, like, liking it a little bit. Like, how cool would it be if Dangerous Game was Hyde sneaking through Emma's window and was, like, seducing this very Victorian woman, like, that would. And then she comes in and sings Once Upon a Dream. And she's, like, coming in, she's like, I did this bad thing. But she, like, can't admit it because he looks so downtrodden. And she sings Once Upon a Dream with, like, the nuance of, like, oh, my gosh, I cheated you on you, and I don't have a hymen anymore. But, like. But, like, you know what I mean? Like, there could be such complexity there of.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, yeah. Of good people having done a bad thing at some point, because I think so. This is also, like, the danger of Jekyll and Hyde being created at the time that it was being created.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Because the original novella is a thriller and it's. And it is simplistic, intentionally so.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And all of the iterations on film also are simplistic and intentionally so. They're meant to be kind of scary and not really sexy and a musical. You can. You can be bold and brash and basic. You can also have a lot of nuance to it by the moment you add a song. It's a character's inner monologue. Right. And they can't lie. Not to an audience, anyway. They can try to lie to themselves. But I had a.

[Cooper Howell]

It's like a Soliloquy in Shakespeare when they turn to the audience and they.

[Matt Koflik]

I know I mentioned this in the American Psycho episode, but I have a friend who is doing a musical theater writing class, either with BMI or Dramatis Guild or something. But one of their mentors was like, in a musical, a character can't have secrets. It's really hard to do twists in a musical because the moment a character starts to sing, like, anything that they might want to reveal, that they might not want to reveal, they have to. So, like, any murder mysteries are really difficult because it's like, well, the killer is just gonna be like, and I killed them. Yeah, sure. But so in Jekyll and Hyde, part of what you're saying, which I agree with, is, you know, the inner conflict of the human psyche of there's what society tells me I must do. But then sometimes they get these urges. Emma has absolutely no urges other than none.

[Cooper Howell]

She's a prop. She is a prop.

[Matt Koflik]

She is a prop. And, and, and just like, yeah, a symbol of white woman, goodness, hood.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And then Lucy is the. Is the alley cat. And it's all very unfortunate, but. But, like, I. Lucy doesn't even have nuance out outside of Dangerous Game because the only thing about Dangerous Game is, like, this guy scares me, but also he turns me on. Everything else is pretty simple of, like, yes, I'm a sex worker, but it's because of my lot in life. I actually have a lot of purity.

[Cooper Howell]

Right, Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And. And Jekyll doesn't have conflict about any of this. He, like, has a moral righteousness that he has. And then when Hyde happens, he doesn't enjoy any of it. So why is he going back and forth? Like, why does he keep injecting himself with the serum if he's. If he's scared of what Hyde is doing?

[Cooper Howell]

And he doesn't even, like, I can't remember what review said this, but he doesn't even act like a scary murderer. He's sort of more like a vigilante.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Because the people he's killing up until Lucy are all the board of governors. And the show goes out of its way to be like, they're all corrupt.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And it's like, okay, so then what is he, like a murderous Robin Hood or something? What are you trying to tell us? He doesn't have a bloodlust. He has a vengeance on Jekyll's behalf. Then the question also becomes, obviously, Haydn and Jekyll are the same person. Hyde clearly is able to watch everything that is going on in Jekyll's life and do all the things that Jekyll can't. Can Jekyll remember anything that Hyde is doing? Because when Lucy shows up, when Lucy shows up with that injury, he's like, my God, how did this happen? And then when she says, oh, is this guy Hyde? And then Jekyll freezes, I'm like, oh, did he forget that any of this happened?

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, interesting. Well, I, I think he has to. Because if, if he didn't remember what Hyde did, then confrontation wouldn't make any sense. How would he be able to have that conversation with him?

[Matt Koflik]

I think in a perfect world, if the book were better and clearer and you and I had a very long conversation about making books a lot clearer the other day.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh yes, I'd mentioned this.

[Matt Koflik]

So full disclosure. Cooper is the friend who I saw Big Gay jamboree with. So in that review where I mentioned my friend Ith Cooper.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, it me.

[Matt Koflik]

Sorry, that was the least gay way you could say that. And it was very funny to me. It me, it me, it me and me. But we talked about this with Big Gay jamboree as well. Because you know, big a jamboree is just trying to be a fun time.

[Cooper Howell]

Why is it gay?

[Matt Koflik]

They never explain where's the jamboree. Well, it's gay because, you know, she tells us about prep and we're like, okay. And then. And then the housewives.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Although I don't think vodka soda is mentioned ever once. That's true. And if you're gonna be a lost culturistas musical, you gotta mention vodka sodas or at least tequila soda. But so you need a clear narrative because if the moment an audience starts asking questions, they are no longer wrapped up in it. And if I have to turn my mind off completely, then that's a testament to how simplistic and under baked the show is.

[Cooper Howell]

And that's exactly Lucy's character. We are forgetting any nuance because Linda Etter is just.

[Matt Koflik]

Is a, is a beltress supreme.

[Cooper Howell]

Beltress supreme.

[Matt Koflik]

And also Jekyll's descent is unclear. I think in a perfect world what would happen is Jekyll takes the injection, turns into Hyde and the first time, or first two times, let's say he's Hyde, he has absolutely no memory because in the novella what they say and in the movies as well is like he first controls when he gets to be Hyde and then over time he has less control over it and he has to start injecting himself more and more to keep Hyde away. The musical doesn't do that. As far as we know. He's always injecting himself to be Hyde and then Jekyll and Hyde and then Jekyll.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But they should make it a point that after, like, the second time of being Hyde, he starts to have memories of what he's doing, and so the two are starting to get more intertwined, and he's losing more control over when he can transform. The show never does that. Never does that. And that's one of the major problems of the Act 2 opener.

[Cooper Howell]

Murder. Murder. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And I. I need to make sure that we have a nice big breath before we get into that, because I have.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, let's dive into it.

[Matt Koflik]

Okay, fine. Let's do it.

[Cooper Howell]

So let's do it.

[Matt Koflik]

Let's fucking do it. So at the end of act one is when Hyde commits his first murder. He kills one of the first board of governors, who we learn is a pedophile because he comes out with the madam from the Red Rat, who has, like, basically a sex worker in her grips who's wearing everything that Leslie Caron wears in Gigi. Like, the big sun hat.

[Cooper Howell]

I'm like, squeegee, yuck.

[Matt Koflik]

I have many thoughts about Gigi.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, my God.

[Matt Koflik]

Both positive and negative.

[Cooper Howell]

Not. Not an opening number called thank Heaven for Little Girls. Oh, my God.

[Matt Koflik]

See, well, that number always bothered me. Not because I don't find that number isn't pedophilic. Because he's not literally saying, I love little girls. Let me touch them. It's. It's creepy because he's looking at little girls like stock investments. Yeah, it's creepy to me.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. All of Gigi should not exist.

[Matt Koflik]

That's the thing. I'm always like, guys, if we're gonna talk about that number, like, that's what the number saying. That's what makes it creepy.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like looking at little girls and be like, oh, in 10 years, they're gonna be so hot. I'm like, girl, come on. No. There are other things about Gigi that I think are actually misinterpreted in a positive way. But in order to do that, you have to read the Colette short story. The problem with the movie version is they just came off of My Fair lady, and they're like, we'll apply the same formula. I'm like, it doesn't work.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Nope.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. If you actually watch that movie and you read and you listen to the script, you're like, oh, that's an interesting point they're making. And then they go into a musical number. And you're like, that number does not understand the assignment.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Nope.

[Matt Koflik]

Which brings us back to Jacqueline Hyde.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. Excuse me.

[Matt Koflik]

No. But it's like numbers that don't understand the assignment, Right? So, yeah, Hyde ends Act 1 with his first murder, which is like, whatever. And Act 2.

[Cooper Howell]

Fire.

[Matt Koflik]

Then fire sets on fucking fire.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Stabs him, sets him on fire. Act two begins. And everyone's like, read about the murder. There has been such a murder and. Murder. Murder. Yeah, my man. And, like, it's. But that's the melody and kind of the basic idea of the lyrics and the whole. It's five to seven minutes of all of London being like, oh, my God. Murders are happening. Murder, murder in the night air. Murder, murder. It's a nightmare. To rhyme night air with nightmare. Leslie Bricus, I'm taking.

[Cooper Howell]

And then the next one is. It's a right scare.

[Matt Koflik]

It's a right scare.

[Cooper Howell]

It's a right scare.

[Matt Koflik]

In the dark or. And sometimes in the night. Oh, my God. They murdered dear old Bessie. I hear. Extremely messy. And poor old Archie is no more. Leslie Brickuss has an Oscar. Billy, I'd like to dim it with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet. Leslie Brickus has an Oscar.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

For Talk to the animals from Dr. Dolittle.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And wrote some good. Back in the day with Anthony.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

[Matt Koflik]

Stop the world. I want to get off. Yeah, absolutely.

[Cooper Howell]

Victor Victoria.

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, yeah. Well, actually, so Leslie Brickuss wrote some good shit for the movie version of Victor Victoria, then wrote some garbage shit for the stage show.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Which is actually Frank Wildhorn's Broadway debut, I'm pretty sure, as a composer, because he wrote three songs for that show.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, one got cut. Louis says got cut somewhere in the run because they kept getting shit for it.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

But, yeah, that one's. Trust Me. Which is when he's like, we're gonna make you a man. And then I think that the final song or the second to final song might be Wild Torn as well. I don't know. I know that show about as well as I know the back of my left hand. And I know her like I know my third cousin.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

But so sure. So, like, yeah, just medium knowledge. But Leslie Bricus had a really great career as a lyricist throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And then something like 1990 happened, or 88. We know what it was. It was Bush Senior got elected president and Brickus, all the way across the pond was like, well, I give up.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah, the Gulf War really did a number on him or something.

[Matt Koflik]

Driving Miss Daisy won the Oscar for Best Picture. And he was like, well, what's the point of it anymore?

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, my gosh.

[Matt Koflik]

He said, what's it all about, Alfie? And he just stopped caring. And so he starts doing. Louis says he starts doing Paris, makes me horny and starts writing this shit for Yuckel and Hyde.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, Yokel and Hyde. But again, again, like, it is a thankless job to be a person who has to sort of puzzle piece songs already written for a show, like, create a book out of. And look, I wasn't there behind the scenes with Jekyll and Hyde. You know, I don't necessarily know how it was created, but it just feels like like Leslie had to do a lot of work of putting things together and making things make sense.

[Matt Koflik]

Leslie was the second lyricist to come onto the project. The first guy that Wild Torn was collaborating with. What the fuck was his name? I'm looking this up now. I have it written down. Why can't I find it? He's credited a little bit, but he didn't actually write any of the lyrics. Oh, Steve Kuden. It's very Phantom in the sense that Weber wrote the first version of Phantom with, I think, Richard Stilgo, and basically Still Go still gets royalties because all of the song titles are from him. But all of his lyrics were like, too campy cheeky and they wanted something more earnest. So that's when Charles Hart came in. And so Charles Hart had to write lyrics to pre existing songs with. With titles already.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Koflik]

Which is so hard. It's also why, like, occasionally lyrics in Phantom are pretty sweet and a lot of them are very generic because he's like, the fuck am I supposed to do? I didn't come up with the title. Think of me. Yeah, I didn't come up with All I ask of you. And so some of these songs already had titles in there, but I would say Brickuss probably had a little more leeway than Hart did with Phantom.

[Cooper Howell]

But even in. But even in Phantom, like, there's that one moment where for whatever reason, Christine is going to the cemetery and sings a song, a beautiful song that stops the plot and has nothing to do with anything. It was just an excuse for Sarah Brightman to sing. And I feel like that is all of Jekyll and Hyde. Yeah, it's two and a half hours of, like, Finding excuses for people to sing incredible ballads.

[Matt Koflik]

It's two and a half hours of wishing you were somehow here again. Truly, the songs are not in themselves bad, but they don't add much and they also don't. There's not a lot of what's. I'm looking for diversity to them.

[Cooper Howell]

Like, no.

[Matt Koflik]

It's usually one hook and one chorus over and over again.

[Cooper Howell]

It's actually a very long sustained note at the end.

[Matt Koflik]

Long, big notes at the end. It's one of my biggest gripes, actually, with Bring on the Men, a song that, like, catchy AF and some. And some of the more intentionally cheeky lyrics. Good and Evil. My biggest issue is just that it's so on the nose in terms of.

[Cooper Howell]

Lacks any kind of nuance. Yeah. At all.

[Matt Koflik]

And, like, what kind of brothel saloon is singing a song like that?

[Cooper Howell]

None. But looking like the Pirates of Panzants while they sing it.

[Matt Koflik]

Looking like Pirates of Penzance meets oh, Calcutta. It's. Right, it's. But at the very least, I think that Good and Evil has more music diversity. Like, it's not one hook over and over again. There's a lot they. Wild Horn changes it up a bit more in that number musically than he does with Bring on the Men. So I give it credit for that. Over Bring on the Men. But this is to say, actually, first off, speaking of wishing you were somehow here again, my friend Justin Mendoza, who's the MD over at Mormon, his big change he would make the Phantom if he could, is because in Act 2, they do the notes section and Christine's like, I can't do it. Don't make me. Goes off stage and the next scene is them at rehearsal. And she's like, I'm here. And like, where was that decision happened offstage. And he was like, if I could make anything change in Phantom, I would put wishing you were somewhere here again and that visit to the grave in between the two. So she runs off. She goes, I can't do it. She goes to her father's grave. She's like, daddy, I'm so stressed.

[Cooper Howell]

What do I do?

[Matt Koflik]

Phantom tries to steal her, and she's like, he won't stop until we get him. She's like, so I will go to rehearsal.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Makes. That makes a lot of sense.

[Matt Koflik]

Dramatically makes so much more sense, which.

[Cooper Howell]

The song makes sense.

[Matt Koflik]

You actually would probably have to cut the rehearsal scene because that rehearsal scene on a. Again, musical chemical level only really fits if you go into the Phantom reprise, into wishing you were somewhere here again. But also it's like, oh, cut it, like, go from Notes to Wishing youg Summer Here Again into them going to Don Juan Triumphant. But, you know, whatever. Some people just know that show so well. Now they're like, how dare you cut that violin solo. I'm like, yes, she's fun, but like.

[Cooper Howell]

She is fun and beautiful.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. We need a dramaturg here.

[Cooper Howell]

Right?

[Matt Koflik]

Like a big gay jamboree. But so murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder.

[Cooper Howell]

Which I wish was like, I wish that song. If we could. If we could exchange all of the facades out of that show and replace them with the murder, murder, murder in the darkness. You know what I mean? Like, the show. The show needs to be scary. It's like. It's part of the appeal of Jekyll and Hyde is it's a thriller. Yeah. But all of the thrills are seven long. It's a seven minute long song where all the murders happen and the rest is people standing around singing about their hopes and dreams. And like, that song, while it's so repetitive, it is what we came to Jekyll and Hyde to achieve. That is what it's promising is a scary thriller extravaganza.

[Matt Koflik]

I guess I think the scariness comes from the fact that literal lives are being taken on stage. But because it's so quick, it's never scary for me.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct.

[Matt Koflik]

And because it's characters we are blatantly told not to care about, it feels like nothing's at stake.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Like, what if that board of directors, what if they weren't like, evil?

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

What if they were literally just like, no, this experiment sounds inhumane. And then him killing the board of directors, that makes that really awful.

[Matt Koflik]

It's. Or like, I don't know. Oh, God, my brain is all over the place. The whole point of Hyde in the original story. And we go back to the original story because, like, what are we doing here if we're not thinking about the original story?

[Cooper Howell]

Right. Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Is that he kind of killed for no reason.

[Cooper Howell]

He kills because he could.

[Matt Koflik]

Because he could. And even in the fucking original movie, he kills Ivy really, for no reason. He torments her and torments her and torments her. And then on his way to his engagement party, Jekyll and turns into Hyde against his will and he just goes and he fucking shoots her.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

She has no connection to Jekyll. She doesn't know he is like, he's just that he's that dangerous.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

There's no merit. Reason.

[Cooper Howell]

That's scary.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. That it's just because he can it's that line from the Strangers in the trailer. Why are you doing this to us? Because you were home.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, like that. Scary. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And so you always wonder, like you should. You should wonder, who is Hyde gonna kill next? And in murder you're like, well, he's gonna kill everybody. Board of governors. And we're just waiting for the next one. Yeah, it's, you know, it's the tallying system.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's what makes Lucy's death kind of scary.

[Cooper Howell]

That's the only way.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Because A, we're invested in her surviving. So the fact that she doesn't is sad. It also is the quietest death. I do like that they do it to sympathy, tenderness. And then some versions they cut out the second half of the music and they just do it in silence. Which I think is, yeah, really great.

[Cooper Howell]

A plus. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But with the other murders, it is the fact that we know who's getting murdered. We're not upset about it. And it happens so quickly. The first one happens at the end of Act 1. And that is sort of like the. Okay, well, first Hyde was just like a very violent sex addict. Now he's actually killing bitches.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But the first. And like we're supposed to be like, oh my God. Past the point of no return. I'm like, oh, he killed a pedophile. Like, yeah, props to you, mama.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, and yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

So act two. Yes. Like it's murder. Is that might be the only song where like actual plot happens?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm trying to think.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And it's too much. It's too much plot. I'm like stretched it the fuck out.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Why. Why is the actual plot confined to a seven minute number and then the rest of it? Because like that Act 2 is such a jumbly puzzle piece of songs that don't need to be there.

[Matt Koflik]

Like four different puz mixed up together.

[Cooper Howell]

We're trying to 100 everything from murder to a new life. Everything in between. That chunk could be cut out. It could literally be murder. Murder in the darkness shows up, murders Lucy and then confrontation. Well, I guess he. I guess he sings. I must go on. Is that what it is?

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know anymore.

[Cooper Howell]

You know the song where he's like, I've gotta, I've gotta finish.

[Matt Koflik]

Oh yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

I've gotta finish what I'm doing. I've gotta carry on.

[Matt Koflik]

After solicitor friend comes into the lab and discovers that it's him.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

So there, there's plot. So the plot disappears so people could sing. And then that scene happens. Then he sings that song, which I actually think is pretty necessary to understanding Jekyll. And then it stops again. So Lucy can sing the best song of the show for me. A New Life. And then it starts again. When he arrives.

[Matt Koflik]

It's.

[Cooper Howell]

I don't know.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know. I don't know. It's. Again, it's one of those things for me where there is a lot I can enjoy. You and I both enjoy the Eder of it all.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, my gosh.

[Matt Koflik]

Eder after, one might say, please welcome to the stage Linda Etter.

[Cooper Howell]

After that is love.

[Matt Koflik]

Love. It trademarked Linda Etter. After. But there is the Etter of it all. There's the. As a performer. Because you and I both are performers as well as all the other many hats that we wear. Cooper's also a producer, everybody. In addition to being a director and an actor and a model.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

You know, listen, any. Anyone's a model with the right filter.

[Cooper Howell]

True rise.

[Matt Koflik]

The rise. Filter that rise. Filter.

[Cooper Howell]

The structure. Put up to 50.

[Matt Koflik]

Not that you would know, but. But as a performer, like, they are. It's not that they're meaty roles so much as, like, Jekyll kind of is, but it's more like they're. Because they're meaty sings, they're fun things. You can feel like a pop diva for two and a half hours while also wearing a corset. So, like, you get. You get the fun of, like, oh, my God, I'm in Victorian outfits. But, like, I get to sing like, Celine Dion. And, like, the sexuality is. Despite how, like, quote unquote, violent the show wants to be, it's actually very, very safe.

[Cooper Howell]

It is.

[Matt Koflik]

It is the. You're in high school cutting off the T shirt at the shoulder so you can wear it off the side.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like that. That Lucy look for Dangerous Game is a look that every girl in my high school tried.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah. It's. It.

[Matt Koflik]

Because it's the. It's the. I'm not quite ready for a finger, but I'm ready for you to talk about that finger, but it really should.

[Cooper Howell]

It really should go there.

[Matt Koflik]

Like.

[Cooper Howell]

Like, if. If. If they're gonna do, like, why. Why can't Dangerous Game be him fucking her while he's singing a song?

[Matt Koflik]

Because they want high schoolers to do it.

[Cooper Howell]

Absolutely.

[Matt Koflik]

They're like, we can't do in Wood Daddy from Strange Loop. But, like, no, I like the idea.

[Cooper Howell]

Of it just needs to go there.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, it needs it. Yeah. Or like, get as close to the Edge as possible. It doesn't even get to the edge. It's literally just like a grind and bump song.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like we did it at Stage Door Manor, my theater camp. And there are some names in that show we had now two time Tony winner Shana Tao was the Lucy. It was her swan song from Stage Door before she went off to college. In the ensemble, we had Natalie Walker of Big Gay Jambry and Instagram fame. We had Broadway producer Lucas McMahon who's represented this year by Six O' Mary and the Notebook.

[Cooper Howell]

Wow.

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Many, many fun people like that. But the fact that like these two 17 year old @ the edge of the stage are singing Dangerous Game and they're doing the exact same staging that Cuccioli and Eder do of just like he's straddled and she's in between his legs and like they're both kind of like swaying back and forth. It's that same level of sensuality on Broadway and one is done by teenagers and one is done by full blown adults who supposedly have been fucking non stop since Hyde became Hyde.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Broadway musicals are very, very, very, very, very scared of sex. Especially the 90s.

[Cooper Howell]

Totally.

[Matt Koflik]

But like that's why I was kind of getting at this earlier and I didn't really talk about it much. But this show being developed during the era of the mega musical and, and Broadway composers trying to respond to it I think is to the detriment of this show because it's so bombastic and really not nuanced in any way.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And we're not trying to make this fun home, obviously. Like.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

This is an, this is an era where we're, you know, doing Phantom and Les Mis. So like I think bigger music makes sense for this kind of story. It's, it's the stakes of life and death, but it's also just, it's far too sanitized and streamlined.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, it's so sanitized. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Again, for a show that's talking about murder and sex work, it is so safe. Phantom Light. I keep coming back to that forbidden Broadway parody because it's so on point.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's not Phantom or Les Mis. It's not quite as good, but just as long and dimly lit.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

It has a lot of the same DNA without actually. So I guess. Okay, I'll put it, I guess I'll put it this way. Phantom, for all of its mechanics is a pretty simple story and has a pretty simple focus. It's why all of the things about like, like how, like how does this make sense? How does that make sense? Most audiences don't care because it's more focused on the Phantom and Christine. And it's very. The plot of their two character arcs makes sense in that respect.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

So we can follow that and all the other details, weird as they are, kind of fall away. Les Mis keeps harping on a specific theme and finds different ways to mention it all the time, of morality and what is good and what is love. So. So Valjean, Javier, like, each character, society.

[Cooper Howell]

And its effect on people.

[Matt Koflik]

And every character is a different facet of said theme. Whereas Jekyll and Hyde. It's just.

[Cooper Howell]

Excuse for people to sing.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. An excuse for people to sing and a badminton match of morality of I'm good, I'm bad, I'm good, I'm bad. And like. Oh, and then also, everything's a facade. So if you're rich, you're actually very corrupt. It's like. But also, if you're. If you're poor, you're honest, but you do bad things and you deserve it.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. And you're evil.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, I just.

[Cooper Howell]

Everything is. Everything is just way too obvious. Like, again, Spider the pimp coming up to Lucy and being like, you were late. If you're gonna be late again, I'm gonna, like, fucking kill you or whatever. Like, the. The madam is like, y' all are idiots. Blah, blah, blah.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know. You girls think you are.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Going or whatever. Also, it's their. There's some spoof of something where, like, there's a constant recurring joke of, like, you and your fancy heirs. And that is how I feel every time someone's like, oh, Lucy, gonna have to Hyde park to hear them speeches. Like, you and your fancy heirs.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. It's.

[Matt Koflik]

It's always like that. Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

They lean so heavily into melodrama. Yeah. It's a melodrama, I think, is what Jekyll and Hyde is. It's not actually a thriller. It's a. It's a soapy melodrama. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Which I think would be more fun if it didn't want to be taken. So.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. If we were doing, like, a camp. Like, if. If someone did a camp version of Jekyll and Hyde, it'd probably actually be scarier, you know, but it just doesn't need to take itself so seriously. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It shouldn't be Phantom meets Sweeney. It should be Sweeney meets Evil Dead.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think also. And I'm sure we've got listeners right now who are yelling into their phones right now because they are so on top of the show. And we've given praise to things and we'll talk about. Absolutely, we'll give more praise. There's like, oh, like honey, we are only on finger three of the fist that we have going on the show. But I say all of this just because there is such a battle in the theater community about this show and Frank Wildorn in general. Frank Wildhorn is one of those hot button topics where you have have the camp that loves him that is so nasty to the other side because like you elitists, you're so up your own butt. And then the people who hate Frank Wild Torn are like, you dumb dumbs. You'll never understand Sondheim. Like, there's a happy middle. Yeah, there's a happy middle. Because Wild Horn has a gift for melody.

[Cooper Howell]

100 catchy melody. He could write a song.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't think he's a terribly versatile composer. He doesn't have to be. But for someone who's, you know, covering Bonnie and Clyde and the Scarlet Pimpernel and Jekyll and Hyde, like different eras.

[Cooper Howell]

Of and Civil War, which is like folk kinda and gospel, that might be.

[Matt Koflik]

The most versatile score. He's written the most different sounding because.

[Cooper Howell]

Bonnie and Clyde, I think his best. Honestly, if I. I should listen to it again.

[Matt Koflik]

I remember thinking the score for Bonnie and Clyde was pretty solid, but that's pretty good. But that show also bored me to tears.

[Cooper Howell]

But see, again, Bonnie and Clyde, everything stops so someone can sing. Yeah, everything stops.

[Matt Koflik]

That fucking 11 o' clock number that Laura Austin sang about, Dying Ain't so Bad. I was like, you could pluck this in.

[Cooper Howell]

Anyway. Dying Ain't so Bad could be Lucy's song right before she gets murdered.

[Matt Koflik]

It would make more sense because she's about to get murdered.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, correct, correct.

[Matt Koflik]

Get like, I'm sorry. Give like fucking Bonnie a new life. Because she'd be like, I'm gonna die, ditch Clyde and start a new life.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Jk, yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Or Bonnie could absolutely sing. Someone like you.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Or Bonnie and what's Her Face. The wife of the brother could sing in his eyes about their two different men.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's all there.

[Cooper Howell]

Yep.

[Matt Koflik]

Bonnie and Clyde are their first shoot up. Who's singing Dangerous Game.

[Cooper Howell]

Right? No. Frank is not good at writing songs that move the plot forward, that matter. Yeah. And I think that's what. Why Sondheim is the goat. Yeah. Because he can't. He can have someone stand there and sing, you know, Losing My Mind, which is like an Amazing illustration of how someone is actually feeling through, like, poetry, essentially. But he's also a master at, like, the fucking first ten minutes of into the Woods, a master class at moving plot forward and having people sing about how they feel and on also their relationships with each other. And he's not good at writing, or maybe he is good, but I just don't know of any examples from his discography of a song that, like, moves the plot forward a little bit.

[Matt Koflik]

Other than Murder. Murder.

[Cooper Howell]

Other than murder. Murder. And. And some of the songs in the Gothic Thriller album actually do, like the Lucy meets Jekyll song and the Lucy meets Hyde song that both got cut actually do a really good job at that. But.

[Matt Koflik]

But those are retro to tease songs. Right? Like, and there's a little bit of that in the final product. Like, before the Take Me As I Am, which it's so surprising. I wasn't expecting to love that song as much as you do, because I love it. Well, because that song also makes no sense to me because.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, it.

[Matt Koflik]

It's. It's Emma and Jekyll's big love duet. They only really get that one.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. But it's so necessary. We need it.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, it's necessary to have, like, the. The We Love each Other song.

[Cooper Howell]

But, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

What makes no sense to me is it spawned from him showing up late for his own engagement party and then him being like, oh, Emma, why are you marrying me? And she's like, well, I love you. And then they sing Take Me As I Am. I'm like, you already are. Like, you guys have no issues with loving each other. You have no conflict. Like, the conflict is him being like, everyone says I'm not good enough for you. And she's like, I know, but I think you are. He's like, cool, me too. And then they sing the song.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Although I do think that section is the most successful storytelling section in the whole show. The engagement party scene.

[Matt Koflik]

Agreed. That's also the only time where Emma has anything resembling a personality.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And her. Her backstory is really interesting. Like, the thing about, like, her mom dying and her father treated her like a child. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

From the. From the day my mother died, my father, full of good intentions, treated me as if I were a young child. Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Good storytelling.

[Matt Koflik]

And then. And. And it's also. It's done because a dude who did want to marry her is like, I would have showed up on time.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Touching her awkwardly. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And she says to him, she's like, I am Not. It's like, I can accept that my father did that to me because he's my father. And he hoped that one day, like, I would grow up and he would see her again. He's like, I totally. Like, I get it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's not great. It's not right, but it's okay. And he's like, you, Simon, are not my father.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I want to marry someone who wants me, not someone who wants an object. And like, bitch, here we go again. The privilege of having money. That you get to say that.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. Period.

[Matt Koflik]

But also, she gets to say it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

After that, it just becomes Henry, Henry. Your journals make no sense. Henry. What do I do? Like, that first scene establishes Emma as somebody who has awareness. She makes a crack. It's not a very good crack. When the woman's like, it's not a good style to be late for your gameship party. She goes, those with no style comments on styles should be made by those who have none. Like, it's.

[Cooper Howell]

It's.

[Matt Koflik]

It's a decent 6 out of 10 joke. It's not a total get her, Jade.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, but it was like a death drop to, you know, Victoria women.

[Matt Koflik]

Exactly.

[Cooper Howell]

To.

[Matt Koflik]

To women who've never been to a drag show. It's absolutely a get her, Jade. But, like, to those. To those of us who've actually been wrestling for Phil for, like. Honey, that wasn't even a paper cut.

[Cooper Howell]

Right? No.

[Matt Koflik]

It's more than Lucy ever gets.

[Cooper Howell]

That's true.

[Matt Koflik]

But. Yeah, but after that scene, Emma just becomes, in his eyes, wallpaper.

[Cooper Howell]

A prop. Yeah, yeah, a prop.

[Matt Koflik]

Which you. If everyone were that way, because it were a melodrama, I would be okay.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

If you. If you set up for us in the first. You have to. In the first 10 to 15 minutes of the show, you have to set up the tone, the world, and what we should be expecting from this kind of writing.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Jekyll and Hyde wants so much introspection. The whole point of facade and. And it's endless repetitions. Not since Blood Brothers and Marilyn fucking Monroe have we had such repetitive motifs.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But they're like. Don't you understand? It's all a facade, dude.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And I don't mind the facades. It's just that it, again, the show completely lacks nuance. Completely lacks nuance.

[Matt Koflik]

And they've got nothing to say after that first statement.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Yeah. At the end, people can be fake.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. That's all it is. You're a fake ass hoe. The entire show. I'm like, yeah, I Got it. But like, even that opening number of Facade. Or not, I guess not the opening, but, you know, with the very first Facade, it is just the same statement over and over. At the end of the day, they don't mean what they say. They don't say what they mean. Which again, Leslie Brickus. Leslie Brickus, kill with fire. They don't say what they mean. They don't ever come clean. And something dear is. It's all a facade. I'm like, yeah, we got that nine verses ago.

[Cooper Howell]

And it keeps so much of. Jekyll and Hyde is like, everything that people who aren't into musical theater think musical theater is about, you know, that those facade songs are just like, you know.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Matt Koflik]

I want to talk a bit about the overhaul from off from pre Broadway tour to Broadway and why people are mad at the Broadway production. Before we do that, let's take another break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Freddy. And we're back. Last thing about. Not last thing, but like, a little more on Murder. Murder before we get to the changes. Just because I had a lot of people reach out to me, be like, you must talk about it forever.

[Cooper Howell]

I mean, it's camp. It's Camp Gold. It's.

[Matt Koflik]

It's the same. The lyrics are absolutely. The Nader. Is that how you pronounce it? The Nader. The nadir of the lyric writing of this show.

[Cooper Howell]

The Ralph Nader, just. Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

No, just like the absolute. They're like the bottom of the barrel in terms of the show's lyrics.

[Cooper Howell]

100 and that.

[Matt Koflik]

And the lyrics of this show are probably the most ridiculed about it. But it's like. Whereas someone like you. And this is the moment, which are just generic. Generic. And also, by the way, this is the moment. That is not the song for that moment of the show.

[Cooper Howell]

No, it's not at all.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Like, it's meant to be so triumphant. I'm like, but we also know what's about to come. So it actually should be foreboding. And also. What do you mean, this is the moment of them all? Like, just dramatically speaking. Makes no sense to me.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, correct.

[Matt Koflik]

But it's nice to hear, you know, Brian d' Arcy James sing it somewhere. Or, like, if Pasquale were to sing it in the highest of Keys. I would be here for it.

[Cooper Howell]

But of course.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Dramatically speaking, makes no sense. Murder. Murder, technically speaking, has very specific lyrics all about what's going on in the plow. Read about this other murder. Just like another murder. Just like that other murder.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[Cooper Howell]

And it kind of captures what I feel the show was trying to do in, like, a gothic thriller sense. It's, like, the only real gothic thriller, except for, like, the ending, but.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, so, like, gothic is ultimately an aesthetic. It's a vibe. It's. It's.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. A lot of it has to do with. Look, in terms of content. It's. Usually there's, like, a little bit of romance, there's a lot of violence, and then a lot of, like, supernatural elements to it, which is truly what Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is as a novella. But, yeah, it's. It's the. It's the dark foreboding and the tension of it all. And there's supposed to be sort of like, a claustrophobic element to it.

[Cooper Howell]

It.

[Matt Koflik]

Which I actually think is something that the Broadway production corrected from the tour.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

But it's. It's. As you said, it is a song where the most plot happens, and it is too much plot in one number. And so there's. It's.

[Cooper Howell]

And it's the plot that we've been waiting the whole show for.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. And it just barrels right through.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And I don't know what. Other than maybe only putting in. Like, actually, there should be two murders in Act 1. Maybe, like, the first murder is someone from the board of governors, and then the second murder at the end of act one is actually somebody random.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And that's when we realize, like, oh, no, Hyde's not out for just vengeance. Like, he'll kill. As Kelly o' Hara says, he'll kill at will.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But we never see him kill at will.

[Cooper Howell]

And Dangerous Games should also probably be in act one as well.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Like, it should.

[Cooper Howell]

Like, that should be his first moment with Lucy. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

If we're. If we're gonna keep a Lucy meets Hyde moment. If we're not just gonna have them bump uglies in a blackout and move forward. Like. Yeah. Dangerous Game actually would be a much better intro song to them.

[Cooper Howell]

I still think that Dangerous Game should be with Emma, that we need to have Emma have an affair. I just.

[Matt Koflik]

Or an almost affair. Just, like, it's something.

[Cooper Howell]

I just. I'm begging for nuance here.

[Matt Koflik]

If we're talking about how complexity, how mankind has good and evil in him, where's the evil. Evil in Emma. Or like. Or at least the conflict in her.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct.

[Matt Koflik]

Maybe she. Or like, maybe she doesn't have a dangerous game, but, like, she has a moment where she's considering leaving. Or is it Edward? Is it. No, it's Edward Hyde and Henry. Henry Jekyll.

[Cooper Howell]

Jekyll. Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

So she's considering leaving Henry.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And like, what, am I weak? Or am I evil for wanting to run away from my. From a man?

[Cooper Howell]

Maybe Emma's dad is like, Jekyll, you are a piece of shit and you're treating my daughter bad. And he murders the dad in Act 1. Just like good and evil and their merits are so. They're so complicated. They're so. It's. It's is evil is not black and white ever. And people who do evil a lot of times think that they're doing good. And I'm not saying that Hyde thinks he's doing good. He's doing whatever the fuck he wants. But, like. But. But even the evil that Hyde does, except for the killing of Lucy in the show, is all in the name of, like, justice, kind of. He's like Batman. He's more like Batman than he is like a true villain.

[Matt Koflik]

Lucy's murder is essentially out of, like, Hyde's jealousy, I guess.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But we never see the moment where he. I guess. Well, I guess at the end of that song, the. It's not I Need to know or it's act two. After he has his moment with Utterson, he does change back into Hyde. Do we see him change into him on stage before the number ends?

[Cooper Howell]

Not randomly.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. I feel like we don't see him change into Hyde. We know he's going to.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, but we don't see it.

[Matt Koflik]

But when he. He comes to see Lucy as Hyde, and again, this is how I suppose we. No, I know. He. He discovers Jekyll's letter to Lucy about, like, get out of town and hears money.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But Hyde already knows that she and Jekyll have intertwined. I'm not into the. The. The rules are so unsure.

[Cooper Howell]

Why does he send Lucy that letter? Does he remember what he's done with Lucy?

[Matt Koflik]

I think it's that he remembers a month ago when she came to him with the bruise.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, so.

[Matt Koflik]

But also he has no knowledge, as far as we're aware, that, like, Hyde has kept going to Lucy. Yeah, it. The whole thing is just very muddled and he's clearer and I. I even like the idea, as you said, of Emma's father, like, what if Jekyll. What if instead of Utterson, Emma's father discovers Jekyll's secret first?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And. And Jekyll kills him.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And it's the first time that Jekyll has killed.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And Hyde takes over after that.

[Cooper Howell]

And maybe, maybe, like Emma finds out about Lucy. Like, maybe follows him one night or whatever. And then there's like a scene where Emma goes to Lucy and is like, you're sleeping with my man. I don't know. And his eyes could be. They could sing it together in the same space to each other. You know, like I know him so well, almost kind of thing. I don't know. There just needs to be some sort of murkiness, more.

[Matt Koflik]

More attention. Other than the fact that like anytime Hyde comes out, somebody's either gonna die or most likely get. Get sexually assaulted.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

It's. Right, it's.

[Cooper Howell]

The only ones getting sexually assaulted are, you know, the sex workers who kind of like it. Who kind of like it. Right.

[Matt Koflik]

It's. It's. There are so many threads that it's trying to tie. And because everything is given so little time on stage, everything feels under baked.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And because. But because the songs are bops, it tends to get brushed under the rug. And because it. It's not Walt Wall music, but a lot of music, it's easy for a lot of people to get wrapped up in it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's. I have felt. I mean, I'm assuming you saw Phantom on Za. Broadway.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. I was talking with a friend about this when Phantom reopened, that the first 20, 25 minutes of Phantom of the Opera are like kind of a magic trick.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Oh yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It sets up a whole.

[Cooper Howell]

Very good.

[Matt Koflik]

Yes. It writes a big old check that I don't think the rest of the show cashes in on. But because the first 25 minutes are really just so well done, we kind of forgive the rest of it. But I feel like after that, every gothic show. Because Phantom is also a gothic show. Like every Jekyll or whatever, like, they're trying to.

[Cooper Howell]

Maury Yeston's Phantom. Yep.

[Matt Koflik]

They're all trying to cash in on the first 25 minutes of Phantom of the Opera. They're trying to capture that same essence of. Of shadows and mystery and tension, but also like big bombastic ballads and just everything being creepy but intoxicating. And that's something that even Phantom of the Opera itself couldn't sustain forever. Only really in those first 25 minutes and then in and out after that. But like Dangerous Game wants to have that same element of Point of no Return. It wants to have the mirrored number. It wants to have all of it. It, like I. From the auction through Music of the Night, Phantom of the Opera is pretty much like, you can't. You can't touch it. It's a runaway train. Don't even try.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And every mega musical, every Gothic Victorian musical after that tries to do the same thing. And you really. There's no formula to it. It's something that Phantom kind of does by accident.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And that's sort of where I get frustrated with this show because I'm like, stop trying to chase that. 25 minutes.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Stop trying to be Sweeney meets Phantom.

[Cooper Howell]

It also has a pretty bad opening, Jekyll and Hyde. And I'm not exactly sure how they would fix it. I'm not necessarily saying that they need to fix it. I'm just saying that, like, we're coming into a Gothic thriller. I mean, Phantom of the Opera. You're absolutely right. Like, the beginning of Phantom is. Is. It's unreal. Like, the chandelier raises and we're in the opera and the auction house, and, like, we. We get the tone immediately. But, like, Jekyll and Hyde doesn't really begin until, I guess. I mean, for me, in watching it, and I've watched, you know, three versions of it in the last 48 hours, for me, the show doesn't, like, start until Take Me As I Am. That's the first moment of, like, two people singing with stakes and whatever. But that first scene is just like a nasty board of governors. Especially the tour, the Off Broadway tour. It's like, so much, like, repetitive. Singing about the experiment he wants to make or whatever. It doesn't sort of open with this spooky, Here we go. Here is the vibe that we're trying to set.

[Matt Koflik]

And you could argue the plot doesn't really kick in. The plot, as such as work, doesn't really kick in until Jekyll injects himself.

[Cooper Howell]

Which is 50 minutes into act one. Truly 50.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. It's all this setup for that. So, like, if we're actually. If we are gonna make the Phantom connection Of those first 25 minutes, let's talk about what happens in those first 25 minutes. It already. You walk in and you see the design of all the drapes of everything, and already it's setting a tone of mystery. We're at an auction. What? There's no number. It's just dialogue. We're getting little pieces of what the opera house that we are supposed to see at some point in it used to be. And it's all very creepy and it's all very. What? And then we hear tale that there used to be a phantom and there was a big chandelier accident. What the hell? And then immediately we go into that big overture, which gives you a giant shock. Everything goes back in time. And that's already very cool.

[Cooper Howell]

Brilliant. It's brilliant.

[Matt Koflik]

And then we were plunged right into the middle of performance for a rehearsal. For a rehearsal for a performance of a new opera there. So we're already seeing, like, how this thing works, the machines of, like, what's the hierarchy? That's the direction.

[Cooper Howell]

And we immediately buy the time. Flip.

[Matt Koflik]

Absolutely. Yeah. We're all. We're all in. So we. But then we're in on this opera and we know, like, that's the diva and that's the director, and here's everything that's going on. Oh, and then, like, within the rehearsal. Oh, we actually have new managers now. Okay. So that's a new twist. Who are these guys? What's their vibe? And because they're new, they need to be explained about everything that's going on. Oh, we. And, like, we get an accident. There's a phantom, the diva's out, which means, therefore, Christine has to go on. That sets a whole new chain of stuff in motion. And while this is all happening, like, Hal Prince is doing all this things at the staging of, like, we're on the stage, we're backstage, we're in the wings, we're in the dressing room, like, all these things within five minutes of that performance being over. We understand that Raul is Christine's childhood friend, so she's got something going on. Angel of Music. Angel of Music might be. Actually be real. What is this angel of Music? There's a disembodied voice, guys, in the mirror. She goes down to, like, all this stuff is happening in 25 minutes. As you said in Jekyll land, the first 25 minutes is. We understand that Jekyll has a crazy father. He wants to do an experiment to separate man's good and evil. And he has a fiance.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And the board members are saying, no, you can't do this experiment. And they should be saying that because it's a crazy idea for an experiment. But they're like, twisting their mustaches as they sing it.

[Matt Koflik]

If we cut the Lucy of it all, the real thing is, Jekyll wants to do this experiment. The board of governor says no. Therefore, he injects himself. Bang, bang, Boomer off. To the races.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes, truly. If you cut Lucy from the plot of Jekyll and Hyde, it makes complete sense. It really does.

[Matt Koflik]

It really does.

[Cooper Howell]

It really does.

[Matt Koflik]

You could even open the show with the engagement party that Jekyll is late to.

[Cooper Howell]

Totally, totally.

[Matt Koflik]

Because he's been working on this experiment. And then the next scene is him going to the board of governors. Is any spin that I'm gonna do this?

[Cooper Howell]

That's a great idea. Yeah, I.

[Matt Koflik]

And then you say no. And so he fucks off. Goes into his.

[Cooper Howell]

Goes into the thing. He's like, fuck them. Injects himself. Boom.

[Matt Koflik]

Alive. Happens.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And then maybe. And then maybe if we needed like a prostitute in the show, a sex worker, then maybe as Hyde, he goes out and sees that's where he meets Lucy.

[Matt Koflik]

Lucy and Jekyll don't even have to meet before. Then she can show up to Jekyll later on and Jekyll's never met her before. And she goes, yeah, well, everyone knows, you know, if. If you, if you need somewhere to go for medical attention.

[Cooper Howell]

Don't want to go to Jack, you go to Jekyll. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I never had to go before.

[Cooper Howell]

But then she has a good experience and then she's seeing someone like you, which is the mid of act one song. And then act one ends with like murders and murders and murders and murders.

[Matt Koflik]

Yes, 1000%. I'm sorry, are we fixing.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, we just fixed Jekyll Hut.

[Matt Koflik]

I love it. I love it. Frank Wildhorn, call us the up.

[Cooper Howell]

Come on. Come on now.

[Matt Koflik]

Because.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that.

[Matt Koflik]

Did you watch any of the pre Broadway tour bootleg that I.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

Okay. So do you know that the narrative of Jekyll and Hyde from the Jekies is that the show, when it premiered at the Alley Theater in Texas, it was like this huge phenomenon, but they couldn't raise the money to make it go to Broadway and so they like took two years off. They did the Complete Works album with Linda And Anthony and Ms. Carolee Carmelo, if you're nasty.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. And giving a very breathy pop performance of these songs, which I like kind of. Well, cuz they're like kind of Doug.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, they're like, so Caroly, you're the anu here. You're the virgin in this one. And she's like, have you heard my voice? It could cut through steel.

[Cooper Howell]

And they're like, truly.

[Matt Koflik]

So it's, it's. It's literally Howard Ashman talking to Jody Benson in those recordings for Little Mermaid.

[Cooper Howell]

Right, right.

[Matt Koflik]

Right. Pull it back, pull it back, pull it back.

[Cooper Howell]

Simon.

[Matt Koflik]

You know, she's also Lisa not to.

[Cooper Howell]

Do Decided by me. It's so good.

[Matt Koflik]

So fun. I also love that photo, the three of them, where she and Linda are both, like, in profile with their hair swooping over. Like they're doing the same. They're mirroring each other. Like, here's my 90s short hair. But they. They then start. They then premiered again, I think in 94 at Theater under the Stars and then Seattle, Fifth Avenue, and then do this pre Broadway tryout tour. Basically. Like, we're gonna raise the money and we're gonna. And we're gonna build. We're gonna cultivate a fan base. Exactly. Which they're successful at.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But they start making all these changes on tour before they make it to Broadway and then overhaul the entire production team for Broadway. And all the fans are like, if what had been on tour had come to Broadway, it would have run for 10 years.

[Cooper Howell]

And they are incorrect.

[Matt Koflik]

They are incorrect.

[Cooper Howell]

They are very, very incorrect. Not them going to the Red Rat and it's like a full 10 minute, like, almost African dance number that they're doing with, like, all of the people that work there. I mean, it's. It's a mess.

[Matt Koflik]

It's a. It's a mess.

[Cooper Howell]

It's a mess.

[Matt Koflik]

Design wise, I also found it to be very bad.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Speaking of the Sweeney Todd connection, the original set design was blatant in its connection because it was, like, very factory with the metal stairs, bridges. The costumes, I think, are also bad. There's a. There is a. A publicity photo of Linda, Christiane and Robert, and Christiane and Linda's wigs are so ugly. I'm like, at the very least, the wig game for Broadway was a vast improvement.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like terribly 90s with, like, the spider bangs, but, like, gorgeous. Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

The production design for Broadway was awesome. Yeah, that set is great.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, what it is is that it's a specific vision with a very, I think, tasteful style. Not everyone's into it. I totally get that style is subjective, but like, yes, the 97 Broadway productions aesthetic, you could argue is like Gothic horror meets Teen Vogue.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm not mad at it.

[Cooper Howell]

I'm not mad at it at all. And like, the wink wink. The facades that, like, people are, like, walking behind. And, like, I really like it.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, because I. I find that it. I think that that design takes itself less seriously than the tour design. The tour design is like. No, don't you get it?

[Cooper Howell]

It's this is a thriller.

[Matt Koflik]

It's dark and it's meaty, and it's important, baby. And it's big. It's so much bigger in scale. And this is on a smaller stage, so obviously there's a little crampedness to it, but, like, the blood red centerfold and. And having a lot of the. The. The exposed brick behind them. So the whole thing gives it a very theatrical flair, but also a very specific. I don't know what I'm looking for, but, like, panache, I guess, because the costumes are. The costumes go in and out of being more period detailed and then, you.

[Cooper Howell]

Know, Pirates meets Slut meets Victoria's Secret. Exactly. According to Ben Brantley.

[Matt Koflik]

1,000%. Yeah. The Victoria's Secret Pirates of Caribbean look for good and evil. But even that, I would argue, like, is in tone with the set design.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Of, like, this is not gonna be 1880s England, as you've read in books. It's not total. Like, we're not totally going bonkers with this sexy 90s vibe, but we're not. Not doing that. We're sort of blending the two, which helps with the idea that the score is 90s power ballads meets, like, wannabe Sweeney Blood Brothers.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

And I look at that set and I go, okay. I at least know the tone of the material. Or at least the style of material. I won't say tone. The style of the material. Whereas in the tour, I do not get that style at all. It's also longer.

[Cooper Howell]

It's so long.

[Matt Koflik]

It's so long. Having the Nobody Knows who I am in Act 2, right before Dangerous Game slows things down also leads into one of the most laughable lines of dialogue. When she finishes Nobody Knows who I Am, and Hyde comes out, he goes, I know who you are, dear. I'm like, that is dumb.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I prefer it being her intro song in. In the Broadway version.

[Cooper Howell]

But also, what, again, why do we. Why do we need it?

[Matt Koflik]

We don't need it.

[Cooper Howell]

We don't need it.

[Matt Koflik]

If you're gonna. I'm saying if you're gonna have it.

[Cooper Howell]

They placed it. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

In the better part.

[Cooper Howell]

They absolutely did.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. But also, snip, snip.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And also, Linda sounds fantastic in it, so. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But, like, you give that woman a fucking commercial jingle, and she'll be like, I don't know the best part. I'm waking up. Like, she would just. She would know. She. What she'll do is a great Linda ism is holding a big note and then ending almost like, on a sigh. She does it in someone like you all the time.

[Cooper Howell]

She goes.

[Matt Koflik]

And I feel so alive.

[Cooper Howell]

That's true. It's so Barbara. It's so Judy Garland.

[Matt Koflik]

It's that control. It's like the. I don't need to forcely end it. I can just sign it.

[Cooper Howell]

So good. And she's also a master at the Holden sparkle, as my voice teacher in college would say. The like 30 second long note on a flat tone, perfect, perfect pitch. That like thing bleeds into the little vibrato so good.

[Matt Koflik]

That's. It's that great control. But I find the pre Broadway tour, I find it bloated, I find it misguided and I find.

[Cooper Howell]

Relentless.

[Matt Koflik]

Relentless and too self serious.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

There are things about it that I enjoy. Like listen, if they were to put Bring on the Men instead of good and evil on Broadway, half the battle would have been one for these people.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't. I don't particularly think that Bring on the Men is such an incredible song that like swapping one out for the other like makes much of a difference, but it is a major fight for people. Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Well, I mean, if we're gonna tell the story that that sex workers are evil, then Bring on the Men makes much more sense.

[Matt Koflik]

Yes.

[Cooper Howell]

And like still is a song that doesn't need to be there because like first of all, why are you are Henry and Utterson. Why are they. Why are they there? Like why did they just decide to take a stroll or whatever to after the engagement party to like, like, you know what I'm not doing after my engagement party? Like going down to Hardware and watching a drag show with my friend. You know what I mean? Not that I'm comparing Hardware to the Red Rat.

[Matt Koflik]

That sounds much more like queer culture. Like after an engagement party that's goes to Hardware.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Hey honey, I'm gonna take my best friend and I'm gonna go down to. Yeah, Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know, just have fun on a drag show. Actually, no, I think in queer culture you would go with your fiance.

[Cooper Howell]

But. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But in this one, why are they.

[Cooper Howell]

Why are they there? In the. In the pre Broadway it's like, hey honey, want to come in and see a show?

[Matt Koflik]

Or whatever.

[Cooper Howell]

And they get like roped into it by like a street barker basically. But in the Broadway one they remember. Yeah. For whatever reason they're returning.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know if that's sort of a thing that a lot of you see this a lot in stories like this of proper gentlemen like to slum it Every now and then.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

You see it like, it's the thing with American Psycho and. But also like any, any story of this era, you see it in Bridgerton to like society men like to go and slum it for a bit and then come back. So. I get that. But considering that Jekyll is supposed to be such a moral man.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And literally is, as you said, coming from his engagement party where he just had the biggest love ballad with his lovely virgin.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. That he was late to.

[Matt Koflik]

And like.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. It's so full of doubt about himself.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. And his. And his worth. I guess it's supposed to be like, hey, come blow off Steven. Like come see the show.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

But even that is so fucking bull.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

In my opinion.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. The lengths that we are going to. To give Lucy any sort of reason for being.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Is. Is really apparent in that number especially. So if we're gonna do either good and evil or bring on the men, I'd say it should be bring on the men to sort of like, to illustrate the atmosphere that they are in. You know, Especially if we just had like a giant. I think it's the second facade which is all about like the rich people. Oh no, there's another facade about the, the, the red rat area that they're in or whatever.

[Matt Koflik]

When in doubt, there's always a facade.

[Cooper Howell]

How Many are there? 4, 5.

[Matt Koflik]

The limit does not exist. I couldn't, I couldn't tell you. I could not tell you. I don't.

[Cooper Howell]

And murder. Murder is basically another facade. Basically. It's, it's. It should be counted as one. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I mean, aesthetically speaking, it is very facade coded. But even if, like, like, I don't know, I think everyone's kind of dropped their facade for that one moment. They're like, girls, I am freaking out over here. There's like totally a murder happening.

[Cooper Howell]

But I guess, I guess bring on the men doesn't make sense then. Because then what? So Lucy sings Bring on the Men. Let the fun begin. A little touch of sin.

[Matt Koflik]

Why waste another minute? And then she doesn't have fun ever again.

[Cooper Howell]

And then, and then. Yeah, she doesn't have fun. Henry doesn't touch her.

[Matt Koflik]

I, I maintain that the people who enjoy that song and enjoy Jekyll and Hyde on a earnest, on an earnest level are the people who can't bring themselves to openly say, I had a one night stand last night. Or like, or the. Like, I slid into someone's DMs yesterday and we had a FaceTime session.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

It's the I put on a front in public. And I'll never admit to any of, like, the horniness I've had behind the scenes.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm here to tell you, I've slid into DMs. I've had DMs slide into me, and I like it. Sometimes I don't.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Period. Sometimes I follow through, sometimes I don't.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Same.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. And that is why I'm here to tell you, I think Bring on the Men is perfectly okay.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, absolutely. It is.

[Matt Koflik]

Not for me. It is not the song that has. That should. That warrants the reputation. Has. Other than the fact that it was cut out of town and it's one of those. It also just has the, like.

[Cooper Howell]

Ah.

[Matt Koflik]

You guys don't even know what the. What the original one was. Was so much better. Like, I think good and evil is perfectly fine. Its biggest sin is just being so fucking on the nose.

[Cooper Howell]

But the show is so on the nose, you know? And it also gives Linda what I think is her best note in the show.

[Matt Koflik]

Oops.

[Cooper Howell]

Flat.

[Matt Koflik]

I know.

[Cooper Howell]

Well, not you. Me.

[Matt Koflik]

I was flat too. You know the story, by the way.

[Cooper Howell]

Of such a good note. Also, burn Frank Wildhorn with fire that she has to sing that high note on an eval.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, that's the problem is he writes this score around her voice, essentially.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

So I'm sure everything that she does, she can do.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, easily.

[Matt Koflik]

But you hear all these other amazing female singers not sound nearly as good, because it's not.

[Cooper Howell]

They're not a freak of nature.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. It's like, you know the famous story about the very first Broadway preview. Right.

[Cooper Howell]

Mm. Mm.

[Matt Koflik]

So Emily Skinner was in the ensemble of Jekyll and Hyde, understudied both Emma and Lucy, as did Leah Hawking.

[Cooper Howell]

Work. But Leah Hawking. Hey, Leah Hawking.

[Matt Koflik]

We love Wild Party and all Shook Up. Woman's got an amazing voice.

[Cooper Howell]

But I did Penelope at York Theatre Company with Leah Hawking. Love her.

[Matt Koflik]

I love her. Gosh, she's so good in Wild Party.

[Cooper Howell]

What a voice.

[Matt Koflik]

What a voice. So good in Wild Party too. So Emily was the understudy, one of the two understudies, and Linda got sick right around the time of the first preview. And they didn't want to cancel, and she didn't want to disappoint, and they didn't have. They had never done a single understudy rehearsal. So they really couldn't throw either understudy on without having there be possibly, like, an accident. So Linda went on, did all the scene work and sang like the quiet stuff. Like she sang Sympathy, Tenderness, she sang no One Knows who I Am. But Emily was off stage and saying all the big stuff stuff. And there's video of it. There's video of it and like Emily Skinner, great singer and that. And we're Talking this like 27 year old Emily Skinner and like beginning of that Jekyll run. So she'll. She's singing heavy. But there are certain things that just she can't do. She can't hit the high note in Good and Evil. She has to do it in. In her head voice. And like it sounds lovely, but it doesn't sound like Linda. You listen to Luba Mason do someone like you. And she kind of struggling as well. Leah Hawking, amazing voice. She's kind of struggling a little bit with danger, with new life and Deborah COX in the 2013, like, she's also kind of struggling a little bit. Colleen Sexton and the Hasselhoff. She can't really. She hits all the notes fine, but it's like she has to go to a piercing nasal area to hit the high note on the evil. Whereas with Linda, she's like, what's hard.

[Cooper Howell]

Evil looks like she's doing it in her sleep.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. It's the vocal equivalent of. Of Michael Bennett choreographing Turkey Lurkey time to Donna McKechnie's body and that last like torch with the neck. And she's like, what's difficult with my freak neck? And everyone else is like chiropractor.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And both are very iconic. But yeah, it's the musical equivalent of that. Like, well, Linda can do it, so I'm sure others can.

[Cooper Howell]

Just like a once in a generation. She's a true freak of nature.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Not everyone can do that. Man of La Mancha, baby.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh my God. Yeah. It's like a gay rite of passage, that video. The amount of gay parties that end in YouTube watches for soft as every gay party I've ever been to. But the amount of times that video comes up, it's like, you know who.

[Matt Koflik]

Introduced me to that was a straight boy at theater camp.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Koflik]

Not even the video. It was because she. It's on her album as well. The Linda Etter album.

[Cooper Howell]

That's right.

[Matt Koflik]

And he played it for all of us because he was a Jackie. Like, you guys don't even know. Listen to this. And we're listening to it. She's amazing. Then we get to the ridge with us and we're all just freaking the fuck out. Like, what? What sound Is that.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, truly.

[Matt Koflik]

Because at first you don't even realize it's her. You think it's like some piccolo or something. And you realize it's Linda. You realize it's Linda Etter, not a piccolo. Linda Etter after baby.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

For Linda Etter after.

[Cooper Howell]

So good. Stand for life.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, it's. But the. The Jekies, they talk all the time about this, like, oh, if what was out of town came to Broadway, everyone would have loved it. I really don't think so.

[Cooper Howell]

I don't think so either. Yeah, I don't think so either. Yeah, they made some major, major improvements. But what they didn't make an improvement on was the book.

[Matt Koflik]

Again, going back to it, the one thing they did do is they made it more concise. They made it. They made it go faster. They just didn't make it better. They make it make more sense. They didn't go. They didn't delve deeper into it. Yeah. Like, they. I think they approved it, improved it aesthetically. They tightened it. I don't think any songs that have been added. For all the talk I give of, like, let's not be so mean to good and evil, I don't think it's a better song to bring on the men, by any respect.

[Cooper Howell]

No.

[Matt Koflik]

Best case scenario, I thought you could say that it was what's. I'm looking for a plateau. Yeah, Change. But, like, probably a lesser change overall. Agreed. Yeah. Any. Any new music is mostly just equal to or worse than what came out, but, like, not so much worse. You're like, oh, my God, it was brilliant before. It's terrible now. The thing that people talk about. Okay, okay. Oh, this will tie us to 2013. Because you know that I was.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes. I was just gonna ask you about.

[Matt Koflik]

That, which I did not see live, but you better believe I was on the message boards reading every day when people were talking about it, because that was another. It was. That was Frank Wildhorn discussion to the max. Because people who had seen it on tour, like, you guys don't even know. It's actually really good. Oh, my God. It's gonna. It's gonna do really well. People are loving it. And then people started seeing it on Broadway and they're like, the fuck am I watching? This is horrendous. It's hilariously horrendous. And then the defenders, like, you guys are all snobs and how dare you? Like, real people, real audiences are loving this.

[Cooper Howell]

And the snobs are like, we're not real audiences. Lol.

[Matt Koflik]

That was always okay. That was always. The thing with Frank Walthorn is, like, real people. Real people who, like, genuinely enjoy music and, like, want a good hook. Like, they love Frank Wildhorn. And we won't.

[Cooper Howell]

Does he mean basic?

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. We won't rewrite this narrative that he's terrible and that, like, we won't let you claim that. And then other people, like, we're not gonna let you rewrite to say that, like, he's this composer for the masses. Because he has had shows do well after Broadway. They famously often do well, you know.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah. That's where he makes all his money is like, you know, the rights.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, the. And I think that is. He. He's not the first, but he is definitely a major person that people point to. And you're like, you don't have to make all your money on Broadway. You can make it regionally. You can make it overseas. We all. I also will say that his. The legacy of the show comes from the fact that Jason Howland was his go to arranger and music director for Jekyll and Hyde and then all of his other shows throughout the 90s and early 2000s. And we hear the wild horn influence on Howland in all of his work in Little Women in Paradise Square.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, my gosh. And Wildhorn has a huge, huge effect on up and coming Broadway composers. I mean, there was, like, a whole generation of composers that were so influenced by him. One in particular, Michael Mott. Do you know Michael Mott? His music is very wild Horn coded. Love, Michael Mott. But Michael. What I think Michael took from Frank Wildhorn is Michael has an ability to move plots through. Through the song. Good. And. And, yeah, I think that's. I think that's really what Frank Wildhorn needs is a book writer and a director who can sit down with him and be like, what is the story that the priority here is not you writing beautiful songs. Yeah, we know you're gonna write beautiful songs. The priority, Frank, is telling a story, telling a kid cohesive story that is entertaining, but also says something, you know, And I guess not every musical needs to say something. Every musical needs to be entertaining because that's what it is. But, like, Jekyll and Hyde is trying to say something, and it tries to say it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, but it's not actually. It doesn't actually say anything at the end of the day. And there is an opportunity to really say things. It just needs to. They needed a book writer and a director that, like, stood up to Frank and was like, you know, this is as important as the songs.

[Matt Koflik]

Are you saying at the end of the day, they don't mean what they say. They don't say what they mean. They will never come clean. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet. I don't want to also have this idea that Frank Wildhorn is, is a Weber esque person where he's like, he's sitting there and he makes all the decisions. Because the truth is. I don't know. I would imagine. No, yeah, I. I imagine he has more influence than most composers.

[Cooper Howell]

I have never met him. I don't know his personality at all.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know. But. But as you said earlier, like, there is a recurring theme with all the shows of, like, the fact that the books are weak, that there is a style.

[Cooper Howell]

So you could just look at the material that he produces itself and you can see the pattern of, like, of the. The book scenes try to condense so much story. There's always gigantic plot holes in each one of his musicals. Like, my favorite plot hole is in Scarlet Pimpernel. She. She. What's her name in that? Marguerite finds out that. Or she meets the Scarlet, Scarlet Pippinel and he's like, do not go to France. Under no circumstances should you go to France. And she's like, okay, I won't. And she exits. And the very next scene is her in France singing whatever song, like, on a table. Whatever, whatever. But like. And the fact that the plots literally stop, literally stop cold so that someone can walk around and sing about how they feel about something, you know, which shows to me in all of those shows that, like, the priority is the songs itself.

[Matt Koflik]

Stopping to talk about feelings is one thing, because that's something a lot of musicals will do. But there has to be. It has to be a feeling we either couldn't explain with one line of dialogue or like that feeling has to change by the end, right? And.

[Cooper Howell]

And sometimes it's necessary, but not every song, you know, you look towards.

[Matt Koflik]

So with Rodgers and Hammerstein, the way that they revolutionized musical theater was by doing all the things that musicals had been doing, which is like, come up with songs that can get played on the radio, that people sing at parties and make them integral to the plot. And if you're gonna have a reprise, have it be integral to the plot and with it's like, I'll give an example, because it's my favorite. As we all know, with Carousel.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

If I Loved you'd is only sung three times, technically speaking, in the show. The first two times are in the bench scene. Both characters sing the exact same thing, but from different perspectives and different points in that scene. So they mean different things.

[Cooper Howell]

And them saying that them singing those songs are moving their personal character narrative forward as they're singing it.

[Matt Koflik]

Absolutely. Because, first of all, they're not literal love songs. They are conditional love songs. Julia is the first one to sing it in a hypothetical. And as far as we know, in that moment, she is the lone person to share any kind of feelings about this situation.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

So eight minutes later, for Billy to sing the exact same thing. In a way, we as an audience understand they are on the same page emotionally, even if they are not totally aware.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Which allows that scene to end the way it does.

[Cooper Howell]

A brilliant, brilliant example.

[Matt Koflik]

While also repeating a melody that we can. Can remember later and want to buy the she music for. It's then done in the ballet with. With their daughter in Act 2. But that also has a thematic representation towards it, but it is also subconsciously allowing us to remember the melody. And then the final time it song is in the reprise by Billy when he's dead. And he's singing the last bit of it to Julie with. There's a bit of a lyric change. The now I've lost you Soon I'll go in the midst of day and you never will know How I loved you not if I loved you so Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Well, also, again, repeating the melody so people go, oh, I'll want to hear this someday. Sondheim talks about it all the time, too. That was sort of Hammerstein's genius as a book writer was finding ways to repeat songs so that way the melody would be stuck in your head when you left. But it made narrative sense, right? So when audiences say, that's not a tune I can hum, Sondheim's like, that's because you only got to hear it once. If I had Worst Pies in London sung nine times in the show, you would remember it by the end of the show. Because no one, no, no basic audience member, here's one melody once and goes. I remember it forever.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, we all walk out humming Facade because it's sung 30,000 totally times.

[Cooper Howell]

And also with Rodgers and Hammerstein, every single time they sing, there is a. Either, like you said, it connects somewhere else in the plot, or it tells Us something about that person that we don't already know. So, like. So like, what's a good example of another song?

[Matt Koflik]

Well, like sometimes also they'll have songs that are meant to set a mood because then the mood's going to be disrupted in the. In the scene afterwards. So people. People always talk about, like, why is clambake there? I'm like, clambake is the calm before the storm. You need to see how content everybody.

[Cooper Howell]

Community comes together before it is ripped apart.

[Matt Koflik]

Exactly. The scene. The scene has no impact afterwards if we don't see how. How calm everybody is.

[Cooper Howell]

Or like when I marry Mr. Snow, you know, right before if I loved you'd the first time it sung. Which really separates the contrast between Carrie and Julie, you know.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. Carrie is so sure about him and knows her plans. She's got a future laid out. Whereas Billy and Julie. It is hypothetical.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. But In His Eyes expresses two sentiments that we already absolutely know, completely know both of those point of views already. It's an excuse for two women to belt and one what. What a song that is.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

And then leading directly into Dangerous Game, which is already a beat that we've played. It doesn't actually express anything new about Lucy and it just shows Jekyll or Hyde doing the same thing that we've already seen him do.

[Matt Koflik]

In His Eyes could make. Would be much more dramatically interesting if there came a breaking instead of Once Upon a Dream.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Emma breaks into Jekyll's study, sees the notebook and he freaks the fuck out. She doesn't know what to do and she's like, maybe I should call it quits. But then decides not to because she sings In His Eyes. Like that's her realizing by the end of the song. No, no, no, it doesn't matter. I look at him and I know.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

If something's going wrong, like there's a reason. And like he would tell me if there's something I need to be worried about that would be more interesting.

[Cooper Howell]

Or. Or instead of his work and nothing more. Like that's where In His Eyes was. And instead of. Of her singing someone like you, like it was them expressing those two sentiments together at the same time. Like, where have you gone? I miss you. And wow, this guy I just met, I kind of really like. You know what I mean?

[Matt Koflik]

Absolutely.

[Cooper Howell]

I don't know.

[Matt Koflik]

There's. There's some.

[Cooper Howell]

We're fixing Jekyll and Hyde. I love it in real Time.

[Matt Koflik]

Show Doctors in real time, but also so with confrontation. Speaking of 20 again, back to going to 2013. So the very first time they did Confrontation, apparently what it was was it was Chuck Wagner who was the original Jekyll. He was Jekyll on stage. And then a different actor was hide like behind a mirror. That was sort of a major point of the. Of the set design.

[Cooper Howell]

Wow.

[Matt Koflik]

And they sang it back and forth to each other and they. People claim, oh my God, it was brilliant. Oh my God. It stopped the show cold. Then on the. Then in 95 when they did Theater under the Stars and 5th Avenue and then the tour, it was Cuccioli alone on stage. But I believe it was a pre recorded Hyde and maybe even a projection. Don't quote me on that. But. But I like, I watched the bootleg and I heard Hyde have a different vocal quality. It was like through the sound system. So like at least that was pre recorded. Then Broadway, they do the back and.

[Cooper Howell]

Forth, back and forth, which I love.

[Matt Koflik]

I like it a lot. A lot of people find it to be camp and I think it's sort of the embodiment of what musical theater is of that it's high risk, high reward. And it's not gonna land for everybody because. Because it's such a bold, specific choice.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And some people are gonna love it. Some people are gonna hate it. At the very least, you applaud the stamina of the actor doing it.

[Cooper Howell]

And when someone does it, well, it is a tour de force. There's nothing like it in musical theater.

[Matt Koflik]

Well. Cause you have Accuccioli who can sell it and then you have a Hasselhoff who can't. So.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

But then the 2013 production with Constantine, he's doing it to a projection of.

[Cooper Howell]

Himself like, oh, interesting.

[Matt Koflik]

As Jekyll and Hyde is him like in a painting or something. Something singing it back to him. And some people like, I think it's brilliant. To me, it's giving very Jack McFarlane will and grace singing the mockingbird song to himself, where he's calling response like that is what I'm getting.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

If that mockingbird don't sing, don't sing.

[Cooper Howell]

You even just did the head.

[Matt Koflik]

I sure did.

[Cooper Howell]

I sure did.

[Matt Koflik]

But that is what I, I get from that.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And it was a. It was a battle online from people. You have, like, if you want, you can go online and find the thread of the Jacqueline Hyde previews of people writing dissertations on the minutiae of Constantine's performance of the staging of the design, what that smile means at the end of a song and all these things. And people Being like, I don't think that's what it means, what you think it means. I think something happened on stage that you responded to. People are not liking it, and you're grasping at any kind of straw you can.

[Cooper Howell]

When.

[Matt Koflik]

And. And then people got angry, like when the critics were mean to it. It's like, no one wants to go in and hate a show, but when you go and it's like your time is being wasted, you get angry. And I don't think anyone felt like their time was being wasted with Jekyll and Hyde the first time around. They were like, they had ambitions, but no one here is up to snuff. And like, ultimately, it's just. It. What makes it can't be fun is like, they had lofty ambitions and. And no one realized that they couldn't do it, so there was.

[Cooper Howell]

Assault is stupid, right?

[Matt Koflik]

Then after many years of. Of similar endeavors, people start to get angry. They're like, must we. To paraphrase the man in chair and drowsy chaperone when he talks about Elton John, I'm gonna put a Frank Wildhearte. Must we continue this charade? And when the. And so when Jekyll and Hyde is the first Wild Horn revival, we're like, yeah, really? We're just gonna do this.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And like, you know what we're gonna say? You know what we're gonna think we don't like the show much, and you've made it work and it looks uglier and you've revised the book to make. To be worse.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, I just think. I think if you're going to revive Jekyll and Hyde the way to. Without changing the book, If. If the book is.

[Matt Koflik]

Or.

[Cooper Howell]

I don't know, but I think if you leaned into how campy it is, I think it. I think Jekyll and Hyde works. You know, if.

[Matt Koflik]

When in doubt, just have fun with it.

[Cooper Howell]

Just have fun. Because it. Although it wants to take itself seriously, it doesn't go all the way in order to sell it. Taking it. Being taken serious.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't. Yeah, I don't think it's deep enough to be taken seriously.

[Cooper Howell]

Not at all.

[Matt Koflik]

And it's in it.

[Cooper Howell]

It's very, very shallow. Very shallow.

[Matt Koflik]

Very long for how shallow it is.

[Cooper Howell]

Totally.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, part of me is like, keep it moving. Keep moving. It's really hard to keep it moving. By the fifth facade reprise, you're like, okay, does everything go.

[Cooper Howell]

And we don't even see Hide until almost an hour into the show.

[Matt Koflik]

I know.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, it's.

[Matt Koflik]

They really want to, you know, tease your prostate with this.

[Cooper Howell]

They're like, we're not.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, we're not doing it just yet.

[Cooper Howell]

They edge you.

[Matt Koflik]

They edge you.

[Cooper Howell]

And then in murder. Murder, they make you come immediately. And then.

[Matt Koflik]

You know what it is?

[Cooper Howell]

There's still an hour left of Act 2.

[Matt Koflik]

Jekyll and Hyde is lazy. Toxic top energy. They leave you question. They pick you up, up at the bar. They leave you questioning for 45 minutes whether they're into you or not.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, my God.

[Matt Koflik]

Then they decide at the very last second they're going to take you home. And then once you're there, they're like, have one hit whiff of poppers. Have one bit of Astro Glide. And then, like, pound town.

[Cooper Howell]

Like, you're basically pump and dump.

[Matt Koflik]

Pump and dump. Carrie Bradshaw being like. It's like basically using a woman as a hand. Jackrabbit sex. It lasts a minute and a half. You don't enjoy it.

[Cooper Howell]

And then they're like, it's a right scare. Yep.

[Matt Koflik]

And like, oh, let me. Let me pick up your phone. And so I. So we can find an Uber on your. On your app, not mine.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And then the Uber takes forever. So you're having awkward conversation, waiting for the Uber to come. Yep.

[Matt Koflik]

And you're like, at the very least, can I have a glass of water?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

And then. And then they start singing to themselves. And then they run into a sword.

[Matt Koflik]

Well. And then they fucking tell you about how they're crushing it at work and how. And how all these cool things are happening in their lives and. Oh, they might move to a bigger place later.

[Cooper Howell]

It's so right.

[Matt Koflik]

I also realized while talking to you in this very moment about toxic top energy. I have four musicals in this series about men killing people.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Got this one. American Psycho, Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. Little Shop of Horrors.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

[Matt Koflik]

Yep.

[Cooper Howell]

What are you trying to say?

[Matt Koflik]

I have no idea.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. What would your therapist say about that?

[Matt Koflik]

Therapy in this economy?

[Cooper Howell]

That's true. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Actually, probably now's the time probably to get into therapy before the economy gets super bad. But, yeah, I don't know. This. People submitted all these shows. I picked them out of a bowl at random, and four of the of them were these.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't. I'm. I'm not gonna lie. I was really pissed off that Jekyll and Hyde came out of that bowl.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm glad we.

[Cooper Howell]

But I get it. I get it again. I get it. Like, the. The music slaps and it created a Legend out of Linda Etter. And there are some really fun, exciting, theatrical moments in this show. It's just. It's just, you know, there are times.

[Matt Koflik]

When in spite of itself, you do get very excited.

[Cooper Howell]

What letter grade would you give the show?

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, that's right. That's how you do these things.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, you do. You do both letter grades. And then out of 25.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, I give like. I give like a. Like a percentage, like out of a hundred. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, you and I both. You and I both gave Vick Gay Jambry a B minus. Right.

[Cooper Howell]

I gave it a B minus.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, no, you first gave it a B and then we were talking in the cab.

[Cooper Howell]

Our discourse. Yeah. Which is first of all, that that show was so freaking fun. Yeah. We had a grand. So fun. Marlon Mendel.

[Matt Koflik]

No, we enjoyed ourselves.

[Cooper Howell]

Legend. It just needs a dramaturg.

[Matt Koflik]

It.

[Cooper Howell]

Absolutely. Yeah. That world building was so confusing. Absolutely. I think I would personally give Jekyll and Hyde, like, I would give it a B minus as well. I think is what I get. I would give it a lot of points for Linda Etter, but then take away half those points because her character has no purpose to the story. I think it. Confrontation and the end is so good. So good. And the songs are bops.

[Matt Koflik]

But I'm gonna give it a C. Yeah. Because ultimately I think that it is too long and too self important for.

[Cooper Howell]

What it is too.

[Matt Koflik]

From what it ends up being.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

That said, there are absolutely bops in it. There are opportunities for really not. I want to say, I'm not gonna say stellar performances, but like fun performances.

[Cooper Howell]

Totally.

[Matt Koflik]

If we're specifically talking about the Broadway production with the original company, I'm going to bump it up to a C plus.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

For Linda, for Robert, for Christian Noel.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Sounds gorgeous.

[Cooper Howell]

Barely talked about her, but she, she, yeah. Was great and really does create a character out of. Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Props to you, mama, for getting the lone pull quote from Ben Brantley.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

And I guess. And again, I think that the panache of the style of the Broadway production is where it's at with this. Yeah. Again, as you said, like even, even the Pirates of Caribbean meets Folly Bergera of Lucy's good and evil costume. Like even that falls in line of. Of just sort of the. We're having fun here.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's. It's. It's cute. It's sexy. Although. But I, I know that the production team, even for Broadway because they. The whole reason for the overhaul was because they wanted to be taken more seriously. So they brought in a British director and designer and they were like, we're gonna be. Be sleeker. We're going to be faster.

[Cooper Howell]

And it is sleek. It's sleek, it's chic.

[Matt Koflik]

It is. It is sleek chic. And. And weak.

[Cooper Howell]

And weak. I'm surprised that Linda didn't get a Tony nomination that year. I think if there were five nominees, she probably would have gotten in.

[Matt Koflik]

But yeah, let's actually. She got a Theater World Award. She won a Theater World Award and she was nominated for the Drama desk.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Let's actually close out with this with the Tonys of that year because then you have to head out. So The Tonys of 1997, the best musical nominees were Titanic, Wanderen, Steel Pier and the Life.

[Cooper Howell]

Never heard of Wandarian before this.

[Matt Koflik]

That was a Julie Taymor thing. Yeah, it was Julie Taymor Lincoln Center.

[Cooper Howell]

So work.

[Matt Koflik]

Many believe that Jekyll and Hyde would have been the Wandarion slot. But they, like the Tonys, made a concentrated effort to kick as much of Jekyll and Hyde out as possible. Wandarion is also like probably more of a critical arc artistic thing. Like. Yeah, that is a. That is like the Caroliner change of the 2004 lineup to me. Then you have Titanic, which is definitely the most successful of the lot and overcame a narrative of people saying it's a disaster, it's not going to go well. Previews are getting delayed, it's four hours long. Then they open. Everyone's like, it's actually pretty okay. Yeah, it's not great, but it's about pretty okay. And if we're talking about the American response to the mega musical like Jekyll and Hyde's trying to be Titanic is much more successful in that respect.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

The life is Cy Coleman's, you know, 20 year baby that comes to Broadway and is a bipolar mess. But my God, are there talk about bops.

[Cooper Howell]

Talk about bops and performances. Holy shit.

[Matt Koflik]

And giving performance opportunities and star making turns to Broadway actors that we have known for years that need it.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Finally being like, hey, Chuck Cooper and Lily Swipe, where they're finally in the lexicon.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

So there's a lot of goodwill for the life about that. And then Steel Pier is just. It's a. It's a creative team that everybody loves even if the show doesn't work.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

So Jekyll and Hyde also with bops, also Bob's Jekyll and Hyde. I see where it could have fit in, but like, I think that the Tonys just were like, no not today.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Leading actress in a musical. We have BB New Earth winning for Chicago, which was the ultimate.

[Cooper Howell]

Like. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

You're not beating Chicago this year. Pamela Isaacs for the life. Makes total sense. Karen Ziemba for Steel Pier. It makes sense. And then Tanya Pinkins for Play on A. I think it's Graziella Danielle. Graziella Danielle musical that no one saw and I don't think many people liked. But, hey, Tanya Pinkins is coming back post Jelly's Last jam.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, I know she's a great actress.

[Matt Koflik]

I'm not ripping that nomination out of her hands to give it to Linda Etter. As we said, voice for days.

[Cooper Howell]

Yes.

[Matt Koflik]

Not so much.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And there's. I mean, nowadays there's five plus. So if we were in those days, I think she absolutely would get in there. She wouldn't. She wouldn't win.

[Matt Koflik]

I think the question is, would the Tonys have been extra cunty and done Ann Reinking for Chicago instead of Linda?

[Cooper Howell]

Probably. No, you're right.

[Matt Koflik]

But, like, also, I don't know. I don't know, because there's a lot of. There were a lot of musicals this year because it was also the year of Once Upon a Mattress where Jessica Parker flopped hard. But, like, God forbid they decide to throw one her way. Or Nell Carter for Annie. I don't know. Robert Cuccioli was nominated. It was him. James Naughton for Chicago, Jim Dale for candide, and Daniel McDonald for Seal. Pierre. With James Naughton winning, everyone thinks that Cuccioli was. Was robbed for that or everyone. A lot of Jackies are like, it should have been Robert.

[Cooper Howell]

I mean, I. I definitely see a case of him.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Of him, I mean. But also Jim Dale and Candide. Oh, my gosh.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. For me, that's kind of what I'm like. We're all sleeping on what I think is probably the best one of this. Of this four.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But I think with Naughton, it is the combination of Chicago was just such a juggernaut you couldn't ignore. And it's also a little bit of the Marissa Jarrett Winokur in Hairspray thing for me, where, for those of you who remember Margot Channing on Broadway Worlds, they said it very perfectly about why they were happy that Marissa won, because Marissa famously beat Bernie for Gypsy.

[Cooper Howell]

Right.

[Matt Koflik]

And Margot Channing was like, I watched Bernadette Peters, incredible performer, take on this meaty role that she wasn't totally right for, but like it. But, you know, really, like, worked hard for it. Whereas Marissa, the role Maybe didn't seem as eventful, but it fit her like a glove. And you never saw the work. It was just pure delight.

[Cooper Howell]

Very true.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. And I think Robert fit Jekyll and Hyde well. But because that show is so. Has so many problems. Couldn't fully succeed.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, came about as close as anyone could.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Whereas James Naughton, maybe it wasn't as like, oh, my God, the stamina. But you were like. Like, you are perfect in a production that we all find perfect.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. Fit him like a glove.

[Matt Koflik]

Exactly. Nominated for book Crazy, where they. Where they lose to Titanic. That this is like one of the weaker book of a musical years because it's Titanic, which is also not a great book. Jekyll and Hyde Steel Pure, which is also not a great book. And then the Life, which is a bonkers book.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Not since New York, New York, Paradise Square. How have you been? Like, like, really?

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Hell's Kitchen.

[Matt Koflik]

Hell's.

[Cooper Howell]

I'm sorry.

[Matt Koflik]

No, it's fine. Everyone knows my thoughts on Hell's Kitchen. Guys, you don't understand. The moment I wanted to jump Cooper. Hell's Bones was after Big Gay Jamboree.

[Cooper Howell]

We went to Joanne to get a.

[Matt Koflik]

Drink to talk about stuff, and Hell's Kitchen came up and there was a beat and Cooper was like, that book is awful. And I was like.

[Cooper Howell]

And look and look. So many wonderful people worked on that show. But I mean. But I was like, my God, never.

[Matt Koflik]

Ever have I wanted to sit on someone's face in public more than that moment. I was like, thank the Lord, Cooper. We are friends for life now. Score. Okay. Best score. This is where Jekyll doesn't get nominated, but it's Titanic which wins. Makes sense that open sequences.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Incredible. Steel Pier.

[Cooper Howell]

Can't make sense.

[Matt Koflik]

Life also makes sense.

[Cooper Howell]

Also makes sense.

[Matt Koflik]

Then Wandarian, which I don't know, but it's Elliot Goldenthal, husband of Julie Taymor, I believe. Yes. Who's, you know, got a very prominent career in symphonic work. So I need to listen to that score to see what it's like. Because, like, I don't know, it's a.

[Cooper Howell]

Little wild that Jekyll and Hyde didn't get in there. I'm not gonna lie. It's a little wild. Yeah, it's wild.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, again, very pointed effort. It's giving very. The previous year when Big wasn't nominated for musical but two closed musicals and nobody liked were.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

But Big was nominated for score. Yeah. Jekyll and Hyde got a nomination for Cuccioli. They Were nominated for lighting design and.

[Cooper Howell]

Costume design, which makes sense.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. But they lose costume design to Candide, they lose lighting design to Chicago, which, again, makes sense.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

I just love that Linda's. Both her good and evil pirate costume and her Eliza Doolittle Cockney outfit both.

[Cooper Howell]

Get nominated, and then she has the good sense to throw it to see someone like you. Does she hold it? Is that what she holds?

[Matt Koflik]

She holds. She holds it and then just. It becomes a prop at that point.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah. I also, like, gives her something to do with her hands.

[Matt Koflik]

And I like the. I like the directorial touch that when the song ends, she does the love me and the ensemble starts walking on stage because she's just a nobody in this world.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, I do like that a lot, actually. I do like that a lot. A lot, A lot.

[Matt Koflik]

There. There are moments in Jekyll and Hydra. I'm like, okay, like, I talked about this with American Psycho. I feel like every show has a song that. If that were like the one song in the demo you were sending to investors, you understand how investors would sign up for it.

[Cooper Howell]

Totally.

[Matt Koflik]

I don't know if someone like you is that song.

[Cooper Howell]

Maybe it's in his eyes and Dangerous Game.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, probably in his eyes in Dangerous Game. Yeah. But if you were to, like, show footage of us of something and. And say, like, this is what we're.

[Cooper Howell]

Working with, probably Dangerous Game, I would confrontation.

[Matt Koflik]

Say someone like you, if only because a. It's a bop and you. And you don't know exactly where it's happening in the show. If you're just watching that one thing and then just the imagery at the end is enough to make you go, ah, yeah. And then.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, yeah, but that.

[Matt Koflik]

But that's just me. That's me with American Psycho. I said the song on the demo is the you are what you wear, which is the.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, that's the song where you're like.

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, Duncan Cheek's gonna figure it out. And then, surprise. He doesn't. Totally. But yeah, that song is another show.

[Cooper Howell]

That doesn't quite go there.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. At this point, everyone will have heard that episode. But my views on American Psycho is. It's not so much that they do anything wrong, it's that I don't. I just don't think that story needs to be sung. Yes. And because they do about everything you can, and yet it still doesn't gel for me.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct.

[Matt Koflik]

And part of it is like, yeah, they don't go far enough. But also, you can't go as far as the book or the movie does in a musical and have this thing make sense.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. And it'd be an incredible play, but yeah, I honestly.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah, I would rather see that.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

But yeah. So Jekyll and Hyde. You said B minus.

[Cooper Howell]

I'd say B minus. Like, 83%.

[Matt Koflik]

Okay.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Okay. B minus for me. Yeah. C. I'm gonna give it a 70%. Yeah, 70%. C plus. With the original company, original design.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

75.

[Cooper Howell]

I would have. If I saw it in the theater in 1997. 97. I would have walked out and have been like. Like, holy. Who is Linda Etter? Oh, my God, what a star.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah. But also, I'll say this.

[Cooper Howell]

Cut her part.

[Matt Koflik]

Cut her. Cut her apart, baby.

[Cooper Howell]

Cut that part out. Put her in something else. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

If. If. If you're a teenager. If you're a teenager and you watch a Broadway musical and you go, oh, my God, it me. Or like, oh, my God, this is. Yeah, whatever. And you eventually phase out of it. I. I do ultimately think that is a statement on the quality of the show.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

There's not as much there as you might have thought.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Because shows that I fell in love with as a teenager, knowing that I wasn't understanding all of it, I have grown more appreciation over.

[Cooper Howell]

Sure.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, Sunday is my go to. I'm like, I fell in love with Sunday at 16. Not fully understanding it. And I still don't fully understand it, but each year I understand it more.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah. That's into the woods with me.

[Matt Koflik]

Absolutely.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Yeah.

[Cooper Howell]

Yep.

[Matt Koflik]

It's the life with me.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Every. Every passing year, I'm like, I know what it's like to be a street. A sex worker. A bipoc sex worker who. Who might have hiv.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Who might. Billy Porter's like, no, you have it with his new book, But Cy Coleman in his book is like, I want it implied.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. Yeah. Right.

[Matt Koflik]

Like, I want to implied that Lily Swipe might have the hit.

[Cooper Howell]

Right. Right. Can't write. Can't come out and say it. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

No, but.

[Cooper Howell]

Which I like. I like that nuance. Nuance is important. I think that's my. To sum up my entire thought on Jekyll and Hyde is that nuance is very important and that good and evil and their merits are way more than just black and white. Like, the evil part of people's brain is like, this might be the only.

[Matt Koflik]

Time you would ever compare the life to another thing and say, the difference is that the life has more nuance. That's the only time we might have to say that about Anything.

[Cooper Howell]

Right, Right. And like, if. If I was on the board of governors of a mental institution and some guy was like, hey, I want to do an experiment where I, like, inject someone and separate the good and evil parts of them. I, I. An experiment on your patients and experiment on your patients. Yeah. I would say, fuck, no, I'm gonna put you in this mental asylum.

[Matt Koflik]

Corrupt as the board of governors may be, they were absolutely.

[Cooper Howell]

They were correct. Yes, they were correct.

[Matt Koflik]

And if you want to know what. Where the proof is, where is. Where is Henry Chuckle at the end of the show?

[Cooper Howell]

Dead.

[Matt Koflik]

So dead.

[Cooper Howell]

Dead.

[Matt Koflik]

And Emma Carew is just sitting there being like, the fuck just happened.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. What happened to me? Yeah. What is happening?

[Matt Koflik]

I want that. That is what I want is the.

[Cooper Howell]

He dies on the floor and she just goes the fuck and black out. Yep.

[Matt Koflik]

I have a friend who recently just directed, who just directed Jekyll and Hyde. And he's like, like, that's when you want Nancy Reagan coming out and being like, say no to trucks.

[Cooper Howell]

Correct, Correct. I think Jekyll and Hyde would be awesome if Frank Wildheart would never let you do this. He's very litigious and very, like, he loves to send cease and desists for sure. But I would love it if Jekyll and Hyde was, like, done, set in, like, the 80s. Like a campy 80s Nightmare on Elm street style. Like, Jekyll wears, like, a leather jacket and, you know, I mean, that's kind of American Psycho. Kind of. Yeah. If you, like, put the American Psycho aesthetic into Jekyll and Hyde and it was just like, camp and like, American.

[Matt Koflik]

Psycho is 80s Jekyll and Hyde minus the Jekyll. It's what? It's, It's.

[Cooper Howell]

It's Right.

[Matt Koflik]

What if Hyde didn't kill himself at.

[Cooper Howell]

The end and work kept finance.

[Matt Koflik]

And works in finance just kept going.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, that is very true.

[Matt Koflik]

Anyway, Cooper, this has been delightful.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, I had so much fun.

[Matt Koflik]

Where can people find you if you want them to find you?

[Cooper Howell]

Okay. So I just signed up for my ninth project yesterday, so y' all will be hearing from me a lot in the next five years, I guess, as a director and producer. But you can find me on Instagram and Twitter as the Cooper Howell. Mm. And, you know, you can also see me walking these streets.

[Matt Koflik]

Oh, and does. Does he walk these streets?

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah. It's a dangerous game out there.

[Matt Koflik]

It's a. Anyone who sees that booty says that's a dangerous game.

[Cooper Howell]

Okay. I know that's right.

[Matt Koflik]

What a facade. You can follow me on Instagram at koplik. Usual spelling. If you like the podcast, give us a nice rating or review. Five stars, please, if you're nasty. We haven't had a new review since the two star review we got where someone said I did too much housekeeping, which just meant I talked about the podcast before I actually got into the meat of the podcast, which is fair. I've done that once or twice.

[Cooper Howell]

But we got right into it today.

[Matt Koflik]

Well, maybe because I read that review, I was like, let's get into her. Okay, up to the shoulder. Please make sure to join the Discord Channel if you haven't yet. That'll be in the link for. That will be in the description as well as. As the link to the fundraiser for the yours truly reading in November. We've already raised over $1000, actually over 1100 in five days. Yes, yes, yes. Very exciting. Congrats. Thank you. And I haven't even reached out to anyone but the listeners yet, so we're very excited. Amazing, Cooper. That's how you know that not only am I famous, but that everyone listened. I pitched sort of the plot of the show and sent and linked everyone to a little pitch deck and they're like, oh, this looks like fun. And Cooper's read the play.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

He has read it.

[Cooper Howell]

So your play is like. It's very charming. I was very, very touched by it.

[Matt Koflik]

That's very nice.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Matt is a very sensitive, very witty. I think you probably would expect that little playwright. I was very, very touched.

[Matt Koflik]

Thank you for calling me little.

[Cooper Howell]

Little. Little Lil. These.

[Matt Koflik]

These. These wrists are so small.

[Cooper Howell]

These dainty wrists. This dainty play.

[Matt Koflik]

Cooperation. So we close out every episode with a Broadway diva.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Put in post. Who would you like to close out today? Is it Ms. Linda Etter?

[Cooper Howell]

It has to be Linda Etter. It has to be.

[Matt Koflik]

Watch me pick, like, the least vocally superfluous song she's ever done.

[Cooper Howell]

You know, you have to do the last verse of Good and evil. You have to. Hey, Evil and good. You have to. Sure. You have to.

[Matt Koflik]

Sure, sure, sure. I'll do that.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah. Or.

[Matt Koflik]

Or.

[Cooper Howell]

Or.

[Matt Koflik]

The looks that hypnotized me. Or I'll do. Or I'll do. Nighttime is where we live. Night is where we give everything.

[Cooper Howell]

Oh, my gosh. We didn't even talk about that, did we?

[Matt Koflik]

No, we did not. Or I'm. Or. Or. What's to talk about? Either of those.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah, we talked about.

[Matt Koflik]

There's no. And we talked a little bit about Girls of the Night. There's nothing to talk about that song. That song is a big fat.

[Cooper Howell]

That nothing does not long belong there.

[Matt Koflik]

It's a wet fart.

[Cooper Howell]

What a tune.

[Matt Koflik]

Sure, it's a. It's a. It's a melodious wet fart.

[Cooper Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

Wet fart. Nonetheless.

[Cooper Howell]

It's a B minus version of Movie in my mind. Same sentiment, same sentiment expressed.

[Matt Koflik]

And Movie in my mind is just a B minus version of my body. That's true. All they have in common is that they're all sex workers. They're like that. Point of all of them are very different.

[Cooper Howell]

Just two sex workers being like, we work in sex. Yeah, it's.

[Matt Koflik]

It's three.

[Cooper Howell]

Our industry. Woof. Yeah.

[Matt Koflik]

It's truly all three songs. The only thing I have in common is sex work. Am I right?

[Cooper Howell]

Am I right? This is how you need to close the podcast.

[Matt Koflik]

It's absolutely how we're going to close it out, guys. Join us next week for I'm not quite sure what it's either going to be the west side Story movie remake or A Streetcar Named Desire. I'm unsure. The scheduling of recordings have been all out of whack, so I don't know.

[Cooper Howell]

What'S coming up, man, but I'm pretty Desire.

[Matt Koflik]

Or maybe this comes out before American Psycho and that comes in next. I recorded American Psycho before this, right? But I haven't edited it yet and this might be an easier edit. I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen. We'll find out, okay? We'll find out Anyway. Take away Ms. Linda. We'll see you GU guys next week.

[Cooper Howell]

Bye. To Be Evil Satisfaction.