Sherlock Holmes Takes Madcap turn At Stage West
With Baskerville, Stage West opts for madcap version, writes Dan St. Yves
BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY At Stage West Until April 15, 2018 ★★★ 1/2 out of 5
There can’t be many fictional characters as well-known as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s intrepid detective Sherlock Holmes, given that even Guinness World Records indicates he is the “Most Portrayed Movie Character” in well over 200 films. Enjoying a lengthy run of cinematic successes as far back as 1900, Holmes has been most recently brought back into popular prominence by portrayals on the big screen (Robert Downey Jr.) and the small (Benedict Cumberbatch).
Among the canon of stories and adventures, one of the most beloved remains The Hound Of The Baskervilles, and playwright Ken Ludwig has chosen to reimagine that comedically in Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery.
Ludwig has enjoyed a long run of ongoing productions of his work, counting among them the Tony award-winning Crazy For You and Lend Me A Tenor, plus Fox On The Fairway (which ran here at Stage West in 2014).
Like Fox, Baskerville features strengths in casting, direction and set design, but seems a bit tepid with respect to originality, borrowing, it seems, from comedic cues pulled from the Airplane/ Naked Gun movies, Young Frankenstein, and a heavy helping of John Cleese, snipped both from Monty Python and Fawlty Towers skits. As I type that though, I realize those elements are some of my favourites, so maybe this perceived weakness isn’t such a bad thing after all?
Truly, the humour mostly works, even when the characters come across occasionally as barely concealed carbon copies of Basil Fawlty or Frau Blücher. The sight gags are plentiful, as are the intentional limitations of rapid-fire costume and character changes where the cast often throws in the towel, not even bothering to try making the change on time — but to hilarious effect.
Credit here goes to director Mark Bellamy, who has also helmed the Stage West production of the adapted Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, which utilizes a similar device of having a handful of cast members juggle multiple roles.
Cast as Sherlock Holmes is David Leyshon, a tall and commanding figure who remains as Holmes throughout the production, along with his Dr. Watson, Patrick Brown. These two are the straight men that keep decorum in place as best they can, as the other characters weave in and out of the goings-on around them. This may just be a personal thought no one else may have considered, but I might have swapped them in the roles, given that Brown bears more than a passing resemblance to Basil Rathbone, one of the most notable and longest running portrayers of Holmes onscreen. Again, could just be me … Brown made for a pretty commanding Watson after all.
In the multiple roles and characters mentioned earlier, Braden Griffiths, Andrew MacDonald-Smith and Esther Purves-Smith are a multitude of suspects, side characters, innkeepers, relatives and butterfly chasers. Between over-the-top characterizations, wacky accents and exaggerated affectations, they all bring their top comedy game. One of the strongest scenes is a brilliant theatrical device where Watson and others are walking in the wind, and it is recreated to great effect through the magic of the stage.
As strong as the cast, set designer JP Thibodeau has crafted a lunar backdrop that is hauntingly beautiful and works to engage in the storyline, as well as a mobile collection of bookcases and brick walls that convert into Victorian gates and even a private opera house box seat. Combined with the lighting and costume, you really do feel like you are in the traditional setting Conan Doyle envisioned for his hero, and not the more modern versions of current film interpretations.
While Baskerville does at times seem (intentionally or not) a collection of spare parts from other comedies, the direction and actors keep things on track to be plenty funny, and allow for an enjoyable stage version of history’s most famous detective.