Any number of dramatists have attempted to adapt the Sherlock Holmes tales to the stage; Arthur Conan Doyle himself tried a few plays around the turn of the century. Yet many of these versions have failed to create much interest; detractors complain that the brilliantly eccentric detective`s Victorian milieu is too talky, too intellectually fantastic for modern audiences.
Riverfront Playhouse`s artistic director, David Morris, weighs in with a new account of ”The Hound of the Baskervilles” that, while it doesn`t overcome all the faults of its predecessors, certainly is a provocative addition to the Holmesian canon.
Morris considered two other published stage adaptations of
”Baskervilles,” which runs 125 pages or so as a long short story, but rejected each for straying too far from the intent of the original. He then spent a month or so over the summer devising his own version, borrowing as much of Doyle`s dialogue as he could.
Titled ”Sherlock Holmes and the Curse of the Baskervilles,” Morris`
play eschews Holmes` Baker Street London digs altogether–a significant part of the setting for the original story–in favor of a consolidation of the action in the eerie Devonshire moors populated by the cursed Baskerville clan. For a small storefront theater with limited stage, such a choice doubtless was unavoidable. However, a good part of the story subsequently emerges in a passive manner, while an opening scene of exposition runs a patience-trying 45 minutes.
Still, it is a good plot, involving centuries-old supernatural legends, false identities, escaped convicts and a fog-enshrouded climactic encounter with the feral canine itself. And then there is the language, so crisply functional within the inductive reasoning process. ”The stories, and this play, are a little wordy. But Conan Doyle never wrote a dull sentence,”
Morris contends.
He`s right, and that`s the appeal of Holmes even today. ”In the 1890s good was good and evil was evil, and Holmes alone could see it better than anybody else,” Morris observes of the detective`s ratiocinative powers.
”We`d love to be able to explain the world so clearly today. That`s why we still appreciate his stories.”
A recent visit found the cast of ”Baskervilles” essentially in good form. Veteran performer Donald Falkos` Sherlock is perhaps a bit too stiff, even one-dimensional. Greg Zajicek makes a good-natured Dr. Watson, the indispensable colleague, while Jack Schultz portrays the endangered Sir Henry Baskerville in somewhat pedestrian style.
The minor characters are far more engaging: a bearded Steve Rasmussen
(looking like Lionel Barrymore) is a fearful servant, Bruce Pilkenton has some diverting moments as the absent-minded local physician, and Peter Christofferson and Sherry Winchester are the facile neighbors, the Stapletons. The 58-year-old Morris, who runs Riverfront on a shoestring as a labor of love, apparently hasn`t yet exhausted his interest in Holmes. He`s hard at work on a wholly original play set during the detective`s retirement. Before that airs, Riverfront is scheduled to perform in December a Morris adaptation of the novel ”Little Women.” Sandwiched in there somewhere is a new musical revue, conceived in workshop, tentatively planned early next year.
”Curse of the Baskervilles” plays at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday through Oct. 19 at the Riverfront Playhouse, 11 Water St. Mall, Aurora. Call 896-1246.
