Steven Dietz’s Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, making its world premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse as a co-production with the Arizona Theatre Company, is a pleasant enough comedy. But while this new addition to the lore of Sherlock Holmes is mildly amusing, it will not please Sherlock Holmes purists.
Instead of coming up with completely new adventures, Dietz has taken two of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s more famous short stories — “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Adventure of the Final Problem” — and made slight changes to the endings. Like many romantics, Dietz refuses to see Holmes as celibate and matches him up with his most famous female rival — Irene Adler, the adventuress who was a former love of the King of Bohemia.
The play begins in 1891 London with a proclamation of Holmes’ death as told by our narrator, the faithful Watson (Victor Talmadge). Fans will be familiar with this ruse from Holmes’ first adventure with the infamous Professor Moriarty (Laurence Ballard). In this play, Holmes (Mark Capri) is already half in love with Adler. Here Adler is an opera singer, and Holmes has a recording of her voice and has already been tracking her career.
The King of Bohemia is a young, handsome, though somewhat comical chap as played with good humor by Preston Maybank. He seems less bombastic than dimwitted. In this play, it is not Adler’s mind that attracts Holmes, but her voice and then her face.
The plot twists on Dietz’s device to remove the greatest obstacle for an Adler-Holmes romance; he must remove her husband — Godfrey Norton. Thus, Norton becomes one of Moriarty’s minions. As it turns out, Norton’s real name is James Larabee (Kenneth Merckx Jr.), and Adler’s maid happens to be his sister, Madge (Erin Bennett). Holmes saves Adler from the Larabees and their boss, Moriarty, and Adler lets the King go on her own terms.
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1 - Arthur Conan Doyle
Check out this introduction article on Arthur Conan Doyle.
Content:
1.Sherlock Holmes
2.The Author's deductive skills
3.A political activist
4.The world's loss
5.Conan Doyle in the 21st Century
2 - Purple Tigress
This is a posting from a person desperate to attract traffic to a Web site that is really rather mediocre. Better info is readily available at www.wikipedia.org or at numerous Sherlock Holmes or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Web sites.