Throughout the weekend of Thursday, November 18, Joliet West presented its fall play. This year, A Chemical Imbalance: A Jekyll and Hyde Play was featured. Each performance was filled with drama, suspense, and plenty of laughs. While there was a lot of positive buzz surrounding the play prior to opening night, the entire experience exceeded my expectations.

The main character, Dr. Jekyll, was portrayed as a young man who is not only fascinated but obsessed with science. While trying to cure a local girl of a disease which seems to be similar to split personality disorder, he injects himself with the same disorder. Both the girl and Jekyll are then sporadically changing from sweet girl and nerdy scientist to crazed murderers.  It becomes a difficult and hilarious struggle to return the two back to normal without the entire city finding about who exactly the murderers are. Because there were never any dull moments in the show, the audience was anxiously waiting to find out what was going to happen and to see what new hilarity would unfold next.  

The professionalism of the entire cast was a pleasant surprise. Their ability to stay in character throughout all of the funny moments was particularly impressive. Several cast members additionally took on accents, which were all surprisingly accurate, to build on to their characters. Taking that small extra step to become the character made the show even better than it already was. There were a few inevitable mistakes and mishaps during the performance, but they were seamlessly covered up right away. The play was hilarious and because of the talent of the cast, it was extremely well done. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the selection of the play and was extremely impressed by the abilities of each and every cast member.