My heart warmed at the prospect of a new Sherlock Holmes play. I was read the stories by my grandmother from the age of four or five, and began to read them myself at six; my taste for their special Victorian sharpness has never died, having survived innumerable films (ranging from good to emetic), literary spoofs, radio plays, and a number of television adaptations. Like most of my generation I regarded the portrayal by Basil Rathbone as the definitive Holmes—in hindsight less because of the character he made of him (which, missed certain central elements of Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes) than because Rathbone caught the timbre and tone of the stories so well, especially in his urgent, razor-edged voice. The enduring quality of this great literary icon is such that, despite all the previous horrors committed in the Holmes name, the news of another play about him does not inspire gloomy anticipation and the groan of "not again!" On the contrary, one goes down to Charing Cross Road and Wyndham's Theatre in a mood of hope and optimism.
Sherlock Holmes has been a rich source of stage and screen entertainment almost since he was created. A number of plays were based on the character. The most famous of these, the adaptation by William Gilette of Conan Doyle's own theatrical script, is a splendid and robust melodrama which is as much fun to play as it is to watch. The list of Sherlock Holmes films is enormous—much too long to summarize here. But the Basil Rathbone versions (despite the eventual and absurd attempt to update Holmes into the Second World War) remain the best in that medium when they were at their best.
Back from the Dead
What, then, is the secret of Sherlock Holmes which playwright Jeremy Paul has discovered and put onstage? For those who are familiar with the stories, there is a clue in the second story written by Doyle after he brought Holmes back from the dead in 1903. Holmes and Waston are discussing the arch-villain Doctor Moriarty:
"From the point of view of the criminal expert," said Mr. Sherlock Holmes, "London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty. … The community is certainly the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poor out-of-work specialist, whose occupation is gone. With that man in the field one's morning paper presented infinite possibilities. Often it was only the smallest trace, Waston, the faintest indication, and yet it was enough to tell me that the great malignant brain was there, as the gentlest-tremors of the edges of the web remind one of the foul spider which lurks in the centre. Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole. To the scientific student of the higher criminal world no capital in Europe offered these advantages which London then possessed. But now—" He shrugged his shoulders in humorous deprecation of the state of things which he had himself done so much to produce.
Actually, the passage is more than a clue. It is the blueprint for Paul's play. After an atmospheric opening (Holmes, isolated in a spotlight, standing on a chair playing passionately on the violin), the audience is given a quick expository background on the meeting and friendship of Holmes and Watson: Watson's service and wound in Afghanistan, his return to London, his decision to share rooms with Holmes. We are then treated to a few of the Holmes deductive
...
Read Full Article
|
