Keeping It Classic? It’s Elementary.
The famous sleuthing duo takes stage in Sherlock Holmes and the Precarious Position. It runs through June 22 at Taproot Theatre in Greenwood.
Taproot Theatre’s current production, Sherlock Holmes and the Precarious Position, might alternatively be titled We Threw Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Canon in a Blender, and This is What Came Out. The piece, adapted by playwright Margaret Raether (better known for her adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse’s riotously funny Jeeves and Wooster novels) is more amuse-bouche than entrée, but if not overly filling, it’s a tasty enough little morsel in the moment.
They’re back, baby — Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, one of Western literature’s greatest double acts. We open on Dr. Watson (Nathaniel Tenenbaum), returning to London from a brief holiday only to be pulled immediately into Holmesian shenanigans. There’s a missing ruby, a befuddled pair of spinster sisters, a sinister ladies’ literary society, and a beautiful damsel in distress. Just another day’s work for Sherlock Holmes (Calder Jameson Shilling) and his faithful Boswell.
Tenenbaum and Shilling are hardly breaking new ground with the characters, not that the script pushes them to do so. This is the familiar pair, flaws and foibles set in literary cement: they have their rails, and they run on them, to paraphrase Doyle. Shilling plays the great detective with quite a credible accent and a gleeful, slightly manic quality, well-suited to Holmes mid-case. (I will admit, however, to being distracted by picturing Shilling as dimwitted aristocrat Bertie Wooster, who he portrayed in Taproot’s last production adapted by Raether, Jeeves Takes A Bow — quite the Renaissance performer, it seems.) Tenenbaum, saddled with much of the play’s exposition and narration, alternates between a more competent interpretation of the character as a man of action (and a ladies’ man) and a more buffoonish one, with shades of actor Nigel Bruce’s bumbling, bowler-hatted sidekick to Basil Rathbone’s Holmes in the 1940s films and radio dramas. Director Karen Lund does a nice job of finding moments to highlight the lived-in chemistry and warmth of the longtime friends and roommates as the two bicker over past cases and current enigmas, trading off fourth-wall breaking moments of narrative omniscience.
Holmes and Watson may be the stars of the show, but perhaps even more impressive are Nathan Brockett and Sophia Franzella, the two actors who round out the rest of the cast and portray somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 distinct characters between them. Brockett and Franzella (two of three co-founders of experimental theatre company Filament: A Collab Lab) steal the show on the regular, perhaps especially as ditzy spinster sisters Minnie and Winnie, proprietors of a women’s lingerie business and reclusive authors of a Gothic romance novel. But also of note is Brockett’s turn as an Italian impresario (who may not be what he seems) and as the slightly weasel-y Inspector Lestrade (channeling the Lestrade of the 1980s Granada series, unless I am much mistaken). Franzella’s characters range from the brash street youth Simpson (a member of Holmes’ famous Baker Street Irregulars) to Holmes and Watson’s long-suffering landlady Mrs. Hudson to Miss Stanton Lacey, seemingly an innocent victim of a dastardly plot and appealing to Watson’s inherent sense of chivalry. The pair manage a dizzying number of costume changes and scene transitions seamlessly and give scope to the piece in spite of its small cast.
Mark Lund’s scenic design makes good use of the small stage, placing a chunk of the backdrop on a turntable which offers opportunities to move the action seamlessly from place to place, and the lighting design from Gwen Cubbage conjures some of the grit and grime of Victorian London. Costume design by Pete Rush is sharp and period-appropriate; the complementary but opposing dresses and bonnets for sisters Winnie and Minnie are the exception, over the top in the best way possible.
It’s easy to scoff at Sherlock Holmes adaptations in this, the year of Our Lord 2024: Why would you bother? What new ground is there to break? That, of course, presupposes that anyone really wants to break new ground with these characters. But let’s be real here: we don’t, not really. What we want is Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, under the gaslight and in front of a roaring fire at 221B Baker Street. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then Taproot’s production of Sherlock Holmes and the Precarious Position, extended through June 22, is a steaming cup of Earl Grey with lemon. Enjoy.
Sherlock Holmes and the Precarious Position runs through 6/22 at Taproot Theatre in Greenwood. Tickets ($28+) here. Accessibility notes: restrooms are gendered and multi-stall. First-level theatre and common areas are wheelchair accessible (balcony level is not). Assistive listening devices available.
Run time: 90 minutes, no intermission.
Jill Farrington Sweeney is a Texas ex-pat getting to know the Seattle-area arts scene, and is perpetually on the hunt for good Mexican food. Her writing has appeared on TheaterJones, Onstage NTX, and NWTheatre.