Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 21, 1995                   TAG: 9506210082
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON                                LENGTH: Medium

BARTER ADDS NEW TWIST TO 'JEKYLL AND HYDE'

For one thing, it's a comedy.

For another, the title is "Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde."

That's right: In playwright David DeBoy's take on the much-filmed tale, the laboratory potion turns the mild-mannered physician not into an amoral and murderous monster but into a beautiful young woman.

The Barter performance, continuing through July 22, is the world premiere of this play. Television actor James Horan plays Jekyll and Kristin Baer is the woman into whom he is transformed.

Others in the cast include Helen Hedman, Patrick Tull, James Weatherstone, and Carole Monferdini as Jekyll's outspoken housekeeper.

DeBoy also wrote "Three to Get Ready," a comedy produced at Barter Stage II last year. He said he originally planned to do a serious stage adaptation of Stevenson's story as written, since none of the previous stage and film adaptations had. But then it occurred to him to add his own one essential difference.

"Well, once you turn a man into a woman, it can't be a drama anymore," he said. "So this wonderful mystery play I was going to do became a comedy."

He said he thought the concept was original with him, but has since learned that England's Hammer Films used it in a 1971 film, "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde" with Martine Beswick and Ralph Bates in the title roles. But it was anything but a comedy.

DeBoy has kept the story set in Victorian times, which gave him the opportunity to pull some laughs from his research into how medicine was practiced at that time and how dating has changed.

"A man and a woman would never go out together without a chaperone at that time," he said.

"We also play around with the fact that, when Miss Hyde comes around, she knows all the things that Dr. Jekyll knows as a doctor," he said. "But because she is a woman, she's not allowed to use any of it. As a woman in the 1860s, she has to find sneaky ways to use her medical knowledge."

"I have no doubt that this will be the comedy hit of Barter's 1995 season," said Barter Artistic Director Richard Rose, "and that the play will be widely produced in the years to come."

Reservations and further information are available by calling 1-800-368-3240.