When the Alley Theatre does silly, it does so with the same august reverence it would show to Miller, Shakespeare, Albee, O’Neil, Williams. It respects the work and imbues it with high-end production values, character acting at its finest, superb costuming, pinpoint lighting. The entire company ratchets up the inanity with a shiny gloss that almost blinds.
But we can see through this thin veneer because the comedy Baskerville, a Sherlock Holmes Mystery (2015) is by Ken Ludwig (Lend me a Tenor, Lend Me a Soprano, Leading Ladies, Moon Over Buffalo, The Three Musketeers). Ludwig doesn’t charm with wit or bubbly wordplay, he hits you over the head with a rubber mallet and spritzes you in the face with a gag flower from his lapel. He instinctively knows where the lowest common denominator lies and he points at it with a neon arrow edged in marquee lights. He isn’t subtle.
This five actor merry-go-round is a comic takeoff on Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic tale The Hound of the Baskervilles, starring the world’s greatest detective, the cool, determined, and cerebral Sherlock Holmes. The fun – and mayhem – lies with the three actors who portray, what, 40 or so different characters. They run off stage and almost instantly return as someone else, maybe with a funny mustache glued to their glasses, or an English Bobby with straw hair and potbelly, or a simpering maid scrubbing the floor in mob cap and apron, or a German butler’s wife, straight out of Young Frankenstein, with a towering hairdo like a living smurf, or a twee aristocrat chasing butterflies, or Cockney ruffians, those Irregulars who abetted Holmes through the alleys of London, or a host of others.
It’s terrific work for the tireless actors (Elizabeth Bunch, Dylan Godwin, Brandon Hearnsberger) who lick the scenery like it’s cotton candy, but it must be hell backstage for the dressers. These unsung workers should get their own curtain call.
Yet for all this precision work, what they are serving is a rather lifeless, timid little comedy that makes us think of other funnier plays like The Play That Goes Wrong, Around the World in Eighty Days, Noises Off, or some random hilarious sketch from The Carol Burnett Show. This never-ending gag fest is tiresome and tiring. Who’s going to be the next silly character to appear with a funny accent and personality tics? Director Eleanor Holdridge certainly keeps them on their toes. A farce needs speed, and she revs it up to 11.
The mystery takes second or third place here. It’s its own McGuffan – that Hitchcock ploy where what the hero is looking for isn’t really that important. It’s the search and the characters caught up in the search that’s really important. That’s what we care about. We lose interest in the boggy moors almost when this play starts. It’s all about who’s going to come out and act silly.
Who doesn’t act like a fool are Holmes and trusted adviser Dr. Watson. Todd Waite, who is retiring from the Alley after 25 years, is an ideal Holmes: tall, imperious, a bit chilled, and always thinking. He cuts a great figure in his paisley waistcoat, starched collar, and sweeping tailed overcoat, the ends of which he brandishes like a rapier. (The detailed costumes, all excellent indeed, are designed by Sarah Cubbage. She needs a curtain call, too.) Christopher Salazar is a fine foil to Waite’s inbred ingenuity. He’s all fervor and gung-ho, a step or two behind the master sleuth’s reasoning and cunning, a good person. They have a warm bond between them, and their mutual respect and even love shines through. These actors overcome Ludwig and can play between the lines.
If you’re in the mood for some mindless fluff, played exceptionally well and looking great – the stage elevator gets as much of a workout as the three actors – then Ludwig is your guy. And why not bid a fond farewell to Todd Waite, whose idiosyncratic performances were always highlights in any Alley production.
In a recent interview with the Houston Press, Waite reflected, “This isn’t a bittersweet departure at all. it’s not that I’m retiring forever. I look forward to staying connected to the Alley in a more general sense. It was just time…to let myself take it a little easier…So I look very forward to continuing to work. This is not my retirement from acting but from the permanent full time company.”
Waite received a boisterous send-off at the end, even a bouquet. He deserved it, Ludwig not so much.
Baskerville, a Sherlock Holmes Mystery continues through May 4 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays; and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $29-$110.
