march 27 2015

[prismaticbleed]

 

 

Last night we went to see the Jekyll & Hyde stage musical.
I DIDN’T EXPECT IT TO BE OUR LIFE.
I expected it to be relevant, of course-- the concept alone is close enough, what with the moral dichotomy of every soul, the hypocrisy of the face shown to the world, the alleged ideal of separating all one's 'good' from one's 'bad,' et cetera.
I did NOT expect the entire musical to be THAT relevant though. It was absolutely wrenching at my heart, the entire time.
Julie kept resonating with Lucy, CZ was empathizing with Emma, I kept seeing Laurie in John, and to top it all off, the guy who played Jekyll himself looked like me. So that was bad enough.
…
The worst part, though, was the final song.
Jekyll was fighting with Hyde, within himself, saying that he would kill himself if it meant it would take the both of them out. Hyde kept shouting at him, you'll never succeed, I am you, I won't let you kill me, etc.
But the song was done with BOTH of them, being performed by one man… every time there was a shift, there was a switch. Jekyll, spotlit in pure white, would suddenly double over, a flash of black, then he was nothing but a shadow projected brutal red onto a screen. Then another switch, a dark instant, and Jekyll is there again.
I was in tears, really. It was EXACTLY what we used to go through, actively fighting Jezebel, and the other hackers. Exactly. It ached, to see that presented so accurately on stage, to see our life up there, in front of everyone's eyes.


During the intermission, too… the stage was veiled by those same thick screens, the set dim and barely visible in the dark behind it. But they were projecting eyes onto the screen. Four huge, catlike eyes, wide and blue… then closing for a few seconds, and turning fiery red. I sat there in silence and just watched those eyes for 10 minutes, thinking Infi, Infi, Infi. That was your saving grace, and Hyde's damnation. We were not split so cleanly. You have a seed of brightest light, buried deep in your own ribcage, and it turns your depths to diamond-dark color.
If not for that, if not for that… I know what the result would have been. That, too, was on stage.



(unfinished)