Ah, Sherlock. Ah, Watson. Ah, lunacy – and let’s hear it for female detectives, too.
North Coast Repertory Theatre offers a loony-tunes version of the Sherlock Holmes-as-world’s-greatest-detective (just ask him) myth in the world premiere of “The Remarkable Sherlock Holmes,” written jointly by NCRT’s artistic director David Ellenstein and one of the city’s best funnymen, Omri Schein.
The lickety-split script offers a cast of nine excellent Equity actors playing a total of I-couldn’t-possibly-tell-you how many characters who rush in and out, many talking about at least one murder they ask Holmes to solve.
Ellenstein and Schein have added music to the mix – 21 songs, with music by Daniel Lincoln and lyrics by Schein.
There’s a fine four-member orchestra led by Ron Councell behind a curtain, and the theater’s crackerjack set designer Marty Burnett created a series of rectangular pieces that the actors push, pull and turn as the mayhem gets crazier.
British writer Arthur Conan Doyle started the whole Holmes thing in 1887. By the time he’d finished, there were four novels and 56 short stories about Holmes and Watson.
North Coast Rep seems to want to smash them all together in this goofy but often hilarious mashup of Doyle’s characters and the ones Schein and Ellenstein have dreamed up. But they’ve added something new for this century: a female detective whose last name is Watson.
This story has four (dead) bodies for a while, then one gets lost and nobody seems to know where (and sometimes who) anybody is (maybe that’s just my confusion showing), but it matters not. This is a show that urges you to sit back, relax, put your logical brain on hold and enjoy watching these actors run in and out, playing who knows how many characters.
Broadway and TV actor Bart Shatto is fun to watch in his NCRT debut as Holmes, who may or may not deserve his reputation as the best sleuth around. After all, as he tells us, he really wanted to be a dancer.
He’s especially amusing after he meets the lovely Sharon Rietkerk, a frequent actor at North Coast, smashing as Watson, the distaff side of the sleuthing profession, whose competence both surprises and annoys Holmes.
In Holmes’ comfortable London digs, we also meet the magnificent but harried housekeeper Mrs. Hudson (Lamb’s Players’ estimable Deborah Gilmour Smyth) and Holmes' young maid Phyllis (Katy Tang).
New York actor Tony Perry plays Inspector Lestrade, amusingly incompetent or perhaps involved in one or another of the murders. Or maybe not. But he’s fun to watch.
Local goofy man David McBean plays the manager of the Hotel Magnificent with great aplomb. Local actors Phil Johnson and Katie Karel are excellent as Gustav and Gerda von Schwanz, a French-inflected pair who seem to be in the art biz.
TV actor Andrew Ableson excellently plays Rabbi Plotkin, who may or may not come to a bad end.
There’s blood, art pieces, fancy jewelry, and lots of craziness here, and the whole thing is nutty and often funny, but finally exhausting to watch. My assessment is that it would be better as a 90-minute one-act.Ah, Sherlock. Ah, Watson. Ah, lunacy – and let’s hear it for female detectives, too.
North Coast Repertory Theatre offers a loony-tunes version of the Sherlock Holmes-as-world’s-greatest-detective (just ask him) myth in the world premiere of “The Remarkable Sherlock Holmes,” written jointly by NCRT’s artistic director David Ellenstein and one of the city’s best funnymen, Omri Schein.
The lickety-split script offers a cast of nine excellent Equity actors playing a total of I-couldn’t-possibly-tell-you how many characters who rush in and out, many talking about at least one murder they ask Holmes to solve.
Ellenstein and Schein have added music to the mix – 21 songs, with music by Daniel Lincoln and lyrics by Schein.
There’s a fine four-member orchestra led by Ron Councell behind a curtain, and the theater’s crackerjack set designer Marty Burnett created a series of rectangular pieces that the actors push, pull and turn as the mayhem gets crazier.
British writer Arthur Conan Doyle started the whole Holmes thing in 1887. By the time he’d finished, there were four novels and 56 short stories about Holmes and Watson.
North Coast Rep seems to want to smash them all together in this goofy but often hilarious mashup of Doyle’s characters and the ones Schein and Ellenstein have dreamed up. But they’ve added something new for this century: a female detective whose last name is Watson.
This story has four (dead) bodies for a while, then one gets lost and nobody seems to know where (and sometimes who) anybody is (maybe that’s just my confusion showing), but it matters not. This is a show that urges you to sit back, relax, put your logical brain on hold and enjoy watching these actors run in and out, playing who knows how many characters.
Broadway and TV actor Bart Shatto is fun to watch in his NCRT debut as Holmes, who may or may not deserve his reputation as the best sleuth around. After all, as he tells us, he really wanted to be a dancer.
He’s especially amusing after he meets the lovely Sharon Rietkerk, a frequent actor at North Coast, smashing as Watson, the distaff side of the sleuthing profession, whose competence both surprises and annoys Holmes.
In Holmes’ comfortable London digs, we also meet the magnificent but harried housekeeper Mrs. Hudson (Lamb’s Players’ estimable Deborah Gilmour Smyth) and Holmes' young maid Phyllis (Katy Tang).
New York actor Tony Perry plays Inspector Lestrade, amusingly incompetent or perhaps involved in one or another of the murders. Or maybe not. But he’s fun to watch.
Local goofy man David McBean plays the manager of the Hotel Magnificent with great aplomb. Local actors Phil Johnson and Katie Karel are excellent as Gustav and Gerda von Schwanz, a French-inflected pair who seem to be in the art biz.
TV actor Andrew Ableson excellently plays Rabbi Plotkin, who may or may not come to a bad end.
There’s blood, art pieces, fancy jewelry, and lots of craziness here, and the whole thing is nutty and often funny, but finally exhausting to watch. My assessment is that it would be better as a 90-minute one-act.
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