The Old Globe’s “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – APT. 2b”: More Than Elementary Entertainment
Making fun of and celebrating Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, the Old Globe stages a delightful, energetic and thoroughly entertaining evening of theater with “Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson – APT. 2b” by playwright Kate Hamill, directed by James Vasquez in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, the Globe’s smallest and only in-the-round theatre. Guessing here that the “2b” – as opposed to Doyle’s address for Holmes and Watson of “221b Baker Street” is a pun. When deriving from Doyle’s invention that holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the most portrayed human literary character in film and televisions history, Hamill might have been inviting theatre goers to imagine what could be.
(from left) Ruibo Qian as Ms. Sherlock Holmes, Nehal Joshi as Inspector Lestrade, Jenn Harris as Mrs. Drebber, and Natalie Woolams-Torres as Ms. Joan Watson in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B, 2024. Photo by Jim Cox.
Weaving often sarcastic references to modern culture into an amalgam of Doyle’s detective tales, four actors play all the parts leaving out of the Doyle character pantheon only Holmes’ fictional brother Mycroft, Detective Gregson (though mentioned by Lestrad) and the Baker Street Irregulars, local boys Holmes used as informants.
Playwright Hamill’s subtitle to the script is “Cheerfully desecrating the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” But this refreshing update to the many times told story of Doyle’s first novel “A Study in Scarlet” (and elements of others) retains the bones of Doyle’s work while still poking fun at it and the rest of us in the 21st century 137 years after the novel was published in 1887. With that much exposure, even those not fully up on the adventures of Holmes and Watson will get most if not all of the well-timed asides delivered by the cast via Hamill’s script.
Globe Artist Jenn Harris starts with a bit overly shrill version of Holme’s land lady Mrs. Hudson then morphs into a splendid femme fatale named Irene Adler, whose character appears only once in a Doyle story entitled “A Scandal in Bohemia. A flurry of Doyle’s scenes pepper the play as asides and comedic comparisons if only just a taste, like the singular mention in passing of the Baskerville Hound by Moriarty. The seduction of Ruiba Qian’s Holmes by Harris as Irene is fun to watch.
Nehal Joshi plays each of his characters brightly and with fun energy: an initially 19th century-garbed fellow delivering the prologue, a parody of Elon Musk, Holmes’ arch enemy Moriarity and Doyle’s long suffering Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrad – though Joshi’s version is anything but long suffering.
Natalie Woolams-Torres as Dr. Watson updated to a Covid-weary physician from America trails Holmes around the stage with an exaggerated tone of Watson’s traditional role as amazed sidekick and documentarian. Can’t spoil the moment, but she has one of the funniest and cathartic moments in the play brilliantly delivering 1 word.
(from left) Natalie Woolams-Torres as Ms. Joan Watson and Ruibo Qian as Ms. Sherlock Holmes in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B, 2024. Photo by Jim Cox.
Finally, Ruiba Qian plays the bi-polar traditional Sherlock Holmes, the most serious of the characters in Hamill’s version of the Holmes universe: drug user when idled with no cases and on a high when engaged in sleuthing. If you’re hooked on 1940’s film star Basil Rathbone as Holmes or, more recently, versions by Robert Downey Jr, Benedict Cumberpatch or TV’s “Elementary” with Johnny Lee Miller, all as modern Sherlock’s, you’re invited by Qian to think what it would be like if Holmes were a woman. With the fewest snappy comeback’s, Qian delivers the dance floor the other characters traverse and, at times, sports the traditional deer stalker hat but not the curved Calabash pipe both of which were branded as Holmesian for many years to come by illustrator Sidney Paget in 1891…though Doyle never described Holmes wearing either.
Theater-in-the-round can be challenging for orienting props and speaking angles. At no time was hearing difficult – even with an actor’s back turned to parts of the audience, thanks to Melanie Chen Cole’s sound design. Scenic designer Scott Fanning used minimal furniture and took full advantage of the constrained space as well as the “off-stage” element that trap doors in the stage floor provided. The only instance where anything was obscured in the reviewed performance occurred when a blood-stained word on a bath curtain was spread out on the stage, blocked from this reviewer’s view by a Queen Anne wing back chair. Safe to say it was the German word for “revenge.” The cast doubled as stagehands as they deftly move and manipulate the props in scene changes. Director James Vasquez took excellent advantage of the exit stairs to bring characters in an out of the action.
In this the summer of the 33rd Olympiad in Paris, France, the Globe gets a gold medal for choosing this well written and engaging play, perfect for enjoying a summer evening in Balboa Park.
“Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – APT. 2b” runs through September 1st
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