The Jekyll case

Our own Henry Jekyll is an esteemed and distinguished scholar of the mind who lived in the late 19th and early 20th century, precisely at the same time as psychoanalysis was born and developed. After an arduous and solitary research on the psychic disorders of his patients, the great luminary came to the identification of the causes of mental illness: at the origin of those disorders there is the conflict between the ego and its dark part, its shadow, the one baptised in those years with the name of Unconscious. According to Dr Jekyll's scientific achievements, the ego, instead of repressing this part, which if too much compressed could suddenly emerge in all its violence to the point of sometimes breaking out into madness, must learn to recognise it and establish a relationship with it, a constructive dialogue. The Shadow, in fact, does not only consist of unconfessable instincts and desires, but is also and above all a source of creativity and pleasure, as well as representing us for who we really are, deep down. Dr Jekyll thus decides to test his theories on himself by bringing out from the cave of the conscious what is hidden to him, to whom he gives the name of Edward Hyde. What the doctor does not realise is that once he has freed his obscure family member, the latter, instead of submitting to the rules of dialogue set by his rational side, gradually begins to live a life of his own, giving free rein to his most evil and violent inclinations, until he takes over the entire life of the eminent scientist. To fall victim to Edward Hyde, in addition to all the key figures in the doctor’s life, unaware of who is hiding behind that unscrupulous being, will be Jekyll himself, who, at the height of the horrors collected by his evil double, will be faced with the bitter choice of whether to keep Edward Hyde alive or “defuse him’ even at the cost of killing him.

Directive notes
Beginning with the consideration that Stevenson's famous novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hyde is an apologia on the human condition, having as its central theme the double, which is the double that dwells in each one of us, we have developed a dramaturgy that has a more clearly psychoanalytic key, closer to those theories that developed almost half a century after the publication of Stevenson's tale, and that had their greatest expression in the scientific achievements of Freud and then Jung. Our text, in fact, stripped of any allegorical solution used by Stevenson and which gives the fantastic character to the whole story, foremost of all the metamorphosis of Jekyll into Hyde through a chemical experiment, the so-called “potion” is rather a journey into the unconscious, in the case of a famous medical luminary, Henry Jekyll, who, aspiring to identify the causes of mental illness, becomes a guinea pig and then becomes the victim of his own theories, pulling out of the cavern of the conscious what is hidden to him, his shadow, his Hyde. From this, it is clear that the story from which we started, is in fact only an inspiration for a story closer to the themes of our contemporary times, offering the spectator the possibility not only to mirror himself in what are the dangers but also the pleasures that spring from his own shadow, but also to be a food for thought on the need to dialogue with his own unconscious, to talk to his own subconscious, to talk to his own mind, to talk to his own mind, to talk to his own mind; to dialogue with one's unconscious, to bring it out and share it with the community, despite society's tendency to repress everything that is outside the canon and that often coincides instead with the authentic, to prevent our shadow from digging a tunnel in our self of suffering and violence.

Sergio Rubini