Later, as Jekyll’s self-experimentation builds and Mr. Hyde (danced by David Huffmire) emerges, the three men engage in an ongoing trio of sorts, building on each other’s movements and motivations in ways that solidify this deep tie.

It wasn’t only Jekyll and Hyde with which Stevenson shared a connection, though—the whole ballet brought the audience into the author’s writing process. It was abundantly clear, through a variety of repeating motifs, that Stevenson was architecting the story even when he wasn’t onstage. 

“Jekyll & Hyde’s” second scene takes place inside an insane asylum and features a corps of dancers dueting with metal-framed, wheeled hospital beds. The display is simultaneously engrossing and hard to watch, with the mental patients flailing as if trying to crawl out of their own skin, emblematic of the conditions that plague them. One can’t help but notice, though, the recurring presence of the beds onstage, and how Stevenson’s own labored movements in his bed echo those of the patients in his mind’s asylum. 

Another recurrence was a sort of hallucinatory, inner-mind setting built by a mirrored black backdrop and, sometimes, red and white masks. Through these scenes, the audience was able to get an even deeper look into the psyche of Stevenson, Jekyll, and Hyde, as they battled with one another and their other respective inner demons, represented by those they had loved, lost, and hurt over the course of the performance.