Shaw Festival
Through October 23
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Human Heart Festival Theatre/Shaw Festival
By Augustine Warner
“Star Trek” and all its offspring are famous for the alternative universes, where principal characters are very different from those in the main episodes.
That’s a little of what is going on Reginald Candy’s stage version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters, in “Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Human Heart.”
Examples?
Mrs. Hudson, the anonymous landlady (Sochi Fried the night I saw it), is much more a beautiful associate and the usual dim Inspector Lestrade (Sanjay Talwar) is accompanied in his investigations by his daughter, Amelia (Rais Clarke-Mendes).
Dr, John H. Watson (Ric Reid), Holmes’ roomie, is dealing with PTSD from his combat time in Afghanistan.
So, this is far from the old Basil Rathbone’ “Holmes,” with the deerstalker and pipe and that whiff of the British Empire and the stuffy Dr. Watson of Nigel Bruce.
This Conan Doyle’s pairing between Holmes (Damien Atkins) and Professor Moriarty, “the Napoleon of crime,” (Johnathan Sousa) is the heart of the story, as Moriarty’s criminal empire is falling apart under pressure from Holmes and the police.
They will meet at Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls.
They have met since Moriarty has come to Holmes under another name to have a problem solved and it was.
The big mystery for much of the play is who is killing people and disposing of their bodies but removing and then leaving their hearts to be found.
That leads to a long scene in a mortuary with the coroner, looking for commonality among all the hearts of the dead people.
Holmes moves to Switzerland while the police are sweeping through the East End to crush Moriarty organization.
As Mr. Hall Pycroft (Sousa), Moriarty approaches Holmes, who knows who he actually is.
Then, various figures move into that final confrontation above the falls.
Years later, Holmes told Watson that his flight over the mountains from the falls would eventually lead Holmes to infiltrating a radical Irish group in Buffalo.
We don’t know if he took a ferry across the Niagara River for the scene view, even, perhaps, visiting Fort George.
There’s more in this overstuffed, technically amazing production.
It could use a trim, two hours and 45 minutes is a little much.
There are some strong performances here, Atkins, Nehassaiu deGannes’ Mrs. Allstrüd, the coroner, and Sousa.
There’s strong direction from Craig Hall, along with Ken MacKenzie’s sets, Hanne Loosen’s costumes and Cameron Davis’ projection.
Even with the somewhat bloated nature of the show, “Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Human Heart” is worth seeing.
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