Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has occupied a myriad of forms. Concerning man's hidden inner depths, such fecundity suggests the gothic classic is itself in possession of some literary multiple personality disorder.
Andrew McKinnon's cut-up of Stevenson's collected works for his Wayward Scot company mixes fiction, poetry and biography to create a portrait of the artist holding up a huge mirror to his own life through the written word.
The result, performed by Vincent Friell and Martin Docherty, with occasional interjections by McKinnon, who also directs, is a multi-faceted parlour entertainment set to David Bernard's foreboding electronic score. As Friell and Docherty prowl the room, swapping chunks of Stevenson's texts, a sensitive, fiercely intelligent figure emerges from the authentic gloom of the Panopticon's Victorian interior.
This choice of venue is quite deliberate: McKinnon has opted to play in public rooms, and there are few better than the Panopticon, one of the UK's last surviving music halls.
There are no laughs or sing-songs from that era tonight. What oozes from McKinnon's psychological line of inquiry, however, is the allure of such back-alley pleasure palaces that tempted Jekyll, Hyde and indeed Stevenson into their clutches.
Theatre Jihad: Inner Struggle, Tramway, Glasgow Neil Cooper HHH GOD saves. But only sometimes, it seems, in this new multi-media-led commission for Tramway's Dark Lights series of new works, conceived and directed by Faroque Khan for his Insaan company.
As a wired young Muslim's dreams are invaded by the ghost of his former Jewish room-mate, the door is opened for 65 minutes of conflict, impasse and eventual redemption among a multi-cultural odd couple.
Each guarding the scantest of territories, one treats his body like a temple while the other attempts to find himself in a torrent of hard-partying hedonism. When worlds collide, destiny dictates that one of them must fall.
As Khan hammers home from the off, the word "jihad" is a much misunderstood concept. Dry as such a starting point may sound, there's a sexily pumped-up 21st-century dynamism at play here, in which Khan himself performs alongside Yoram Mosenzon.
Together, the pair leap through a series of physically charged, high-definition set-pieces that play with scale and perspective as much as exultations of love, war, faith and believing.
Such confrontations aren't, of course, exclusive to Jews and Muslims. In the existing climate of fear, however, such obvious polarisations lend weight to Khan's argument, despite some clunky platitudes at the surface of Troy Fairclough's script.
Jihad's strengths lie in Khan and Mosenzon's wordless, well-toned exchanges. Daniel Padden's restlessly evocative beats and drones underscores the best of this punchy and passionate assault on culture that only occasionally misfires.
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