Robert Townsend as Henry Jekyll and Lulu Lloyd as Lucy Harris Cabrillo Music Theatre's production of "Jekyll & Hyde: the Musical" at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, proved to be a disturbingly beautiful musical version of the classic novella, "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson, an allegory about the duality of man's inner nature.

Robert Townsend plays the tortured physician Henry Jekyll, who, in an attempt to save the life of his comatose father, experiments with dangerous drugs to try to suppress man's "id," the Freudian term for the hidden dark side in each of us.

As in most mad scientist stories, the experiment goes haywire, and Jekyll turns himself into a schizophrenic monster named Edward Hyde (a pun, since the villain "hides" within Jekyll's soul), who terrorizes and attacks prominent members of society in Victorian London sometime in the 1880s.

A Broadway hit since 1997, "Jekyll & Hyde" has itself gone through transformations, just as its tragic hero does in the show. Songs have been substituted, characters' roles have changed, but the basic dark and tragic tale remains faithful to the original.

Much of "Jekyll & Hyde" is derived from other shows we've seen on the stage. The perverted relationship between the harlot Lucy and the sadistic Hyde is merely a fleshed-out version of the one between Nancy and Bill Sikes in "Oliver!" The subplot of Hyde gaining vengeance on the snooty and hypocritical members of the board of governors that rejected Jekyll's scientific proposal is similar to that in "Sweeney Todd," in which another series of murders is perpetrated by a wronged anti-hero seeking revenge. As for a scientist loosing a monster on society, that's simply "Frankenstein" directed inward.

The utter tragedy of Henry Jekyll's lot is his overall nobility and concern for humanity, something that Townsend brilliantly displays in his performance. Like his show business ancestor Lon Chaney Sr., Townsend required no makeup changes to transform himself into the malevolent Hyde. Garish lighting, a bad hair day, and Townsend's extraordinary acting took care of the rest. There is probably no more chilling moment on the stage than Jekyll's initial transformation after injecting himself with the bloodred serum, a magnificently riveting and petrifying scene.

In staging Stevenson's classic tale, director Nick DeGruccio emphasized the last two syllables of "allegory"; the show has more than its fair share of stabbings, stranglings and beheadings; however, to quote a line from "Chicago," "They had it coming."

Steven Young's lighting design and Jeffrey Marsh's special effects heightened the horror of each of Hyde's dastardly acts, leaving the audience spellbound, waiting in morbid anticipation of the next murderous deed.

Townsend's stellar performance was perfectly matched by Lulu Lloyd, whose portrayal of Lucy, the trollop with the heart of gold, was sensational, especially in her solo performance of the exquisitely sad "No One Knows Who I Am."

The show's score is one of its major strengths. With music written by Frank Wildhorn ("Scarlet Pimpernel") and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse ("Victor/ Victoria," "Dr. Dolittle" and many others), the melancholy score is rife with gorgeous melodies, most notably Jekyll's "This is the Moment," the show's equivalent of "The Impossible Dream," and Emma's anthemic "Once Upon a Dream." The chiefly somber score features only one upbeat song, the joyously decadent "Bring on the Men," sung by a chorus of "ladies of the evening" in the appropriately named Red Rat Pub.

In a "chat with the cast" session after a Saturday matinee performance, actors and crew responded to questions about the production.

Their answers revealed the tightly knit camaraderie that developed during the short, four-week rehearsal schedule. Introduced in the audience was Steve Cuden, who, along with Frank Wildhorn, was responsible for the initial conception of the musical back in the mid1990s. Cuden told the cast that Cabrillo's version of the show is as good as any he has seen since it was on Broadway, including the Tony Awardwinning original cast.

This says a lot for Cabrillo, whose consistently stellar productions have made Thousand Oaks' resident theater company the crown jewel of each season's lineup since the theater's opening in 1994.

For information on upcoming productions, visit the website www.cabrillomusictheatre.com or call (805) 449-2775.