Sherlock Holmes wants to check out of life, so he joins a secret club that can make it happen.
There's a catch at The Suicide Club, though: He must draw the black billiard ball in a wickedly twisted game of Russian roulette.
A white ball means prolonged misery. Black means death by a second party. And red - that's the most evil ball of all. Draw that one and you have the obligation of putting your fellow despondent human being out of his misery.
But there is much more going on at the exclusive Suicide Club, something so sinister and dark it requires the genius of the great London detective.
By jove, Dear Watson, we've got a mystery to solve!
Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher takes Arthur Conan Doyle's famous characters and drops them into a story inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's novella "The Suicide Club" to create a thrilling comic mystery - "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club."
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Arizona Theatre Company opened the world-premiere of the work, which the company commissioned, on Friday. The show at the Temple of Music and Art was sold out.
The play is wonderfully funny. Snappy dialogue is written in crisp, formal English from the Victorian era - an accent and diction that flowed nearly seamlessly from the mouth of Remi Sandri as Holmes.
Sandri embodied Holmes in the historical sense - obtuse and sarcastic, anal to the nth degree from his rigid posture to his permanent near-scowl. His facial expressions never wavered, even when he was spouting rich comic lines. In the opening scene, when Dr. Watson (Jeff Steitzer) criticizes him for poor hygiene, he shoots back: "The body is designed for decay, Watson."
Steitzer's Watson was equally impressive, from his dead-on English accent to his wonderful comic timing. Watson, ever Holmes' defender, doesn't accept that his dear friend is mentally out of sorts. So he follows him in a bumbling sort of way right to the Suicide Club doors. Mysteriously, the skeptical Club Secretary (Celeste Ciulla) allows him in without the requisite hoops-jumping.
When Watson draws the black ball on his first turn at the game, it is up to Holmes to save him - if he can.
The whodunit mystery comes complete with a wow-I-didn't-see-that- coming ending.
ATC's set was enhanced by black-and-white, sometimes sepia-toned video images of London scenes, circa 1914, shown on a large screen at the back of the stage. The images put you on the streets of London, on a bustling London Bridge or in a dark tavern, creating a cinematic ambience.
Other standout performances included Ciulla, who was playfully domineering as the Club Secretary; Alexandra Tavares as the love-sick, mysterious young widow Christian de LaBegassier; Nicholas Bailey as her equally smitten pawn Russian Prince Nikita Starloff; Roberto Guajardo as the sympathetic wheelchair user Mr. Henry; and James Cada as the overbearing Mr. George.
Mark Anders' cowering Mr. Williams, the distraught son of a dead newspaper baron with a fancy for powdered-sugar-covered tarts, was equally lovable and pathetic.
Kudos also to the young cast of minor characters, including University of Arizona student Karl Hussey, who was delightfully skittish as the young hotel clerk.
Review
"Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Suicide Club" at the Temple of Music and Art Friday. The Arizona Theatre Company presentation continues through Oct. 8 at the temple, 330 S. Scott Ave. www.arizonatheatre.org
Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@azstarnet.com or 573-4642.
