What if Queen Victoria had a secret so sensitive that it threatened the very existence of the British Empire? By Jove!
What if this secret involved the (supposedly) long-deceased Prince Consort, a zaftig German songstress and one of the most dastardly villains ever? Oh, and weird anagrams?
Well, then you'd have Holmes and Watson Save the Empire, and the game would be afoot. You'd also have fun.
Holmes and Watson Save the Empire, by Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner, opened Friday night at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre in Ashland, directed by Michael Hume. A musical-mystery farce focused on the Holmes-Watson friendship, it is droll, irreverent and spectacularly silly.
Robin Downward as Holmes and Jason Marks as Watson sing and hoof and build scenes reacting elaborately to one another's tics as old pals. A running gag is that Holmes, with all his intellect, cannot remember where he has put things, anything, and reacts each time by angrily blaming Watson. When the boys are forced to smoke hashish from a colossal hookah (it seems it's the only defense against a fiendish poison gas attack), Watson develops a case of the munchies. And so on.
The plot actually requires Holmes to solve two mysteries. One, what's up with the Queen? And two, what villainy is afoot that requires that Holmes and Watson be dispatched specifically inside Holmes's apartment? The premise behind the first mystery is the more outrageous and leads ultimately to some very funny stage business. This is good writing, and deceptively light on the stage.
We've always been fascinated by buddy bonds between men who seem to be opposites, as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Hume points out in his notes to the play: Oscar and Felix, Bert and Ernie, Spock and Kirk. In moviedom, a picture about 30-something, commitment-fearing men who have never grown up is called a bro-mance. And that's what "Holmes and Watson" is, even though it's set in Victorian England.
The show is a bit slowish on the uptake, with a couple of performers named Mortimer Chips and Freddy Fish (played by Brad Ridwinnow and Mark Jassoon, whose relationship with the other actors is worth pondering) having a couple of numbers before we meet Holmes and Watson. All this will make sense later. Holmes introduces himself with a tune called "The Connoisseur of Crime," and Watson follows with "Clueless."
Hillgartner wrote the music, and he and Beecham together wrote the lyrics. There may not be that one big song you'll go away humming, but the musical numbers are apt and funny on the stage, and they have the virtue of actually moving the plot along rather than simply amplifying a moment here and there.
The show requires male actors to create and reveal an important relationship, but there's no homoerotic vibe. Downward and Marks are a coupla coves with real bro-chemistry, especially in the second act, when in a reversal of what one often sees in new (or new-ish) plays, things pick up considerably.
Downward is an actor and singer who recently founded the Randall Theatre Company of Medford. Marks is an actor/singer/playwright whose day job is with the School of the Performing Arts in Richmond, Va. Kudos to Hume if he's the one who brought this odd couple together. In addition to being trained singers with solo voices, the guys blend their vocals into some tasty close harmonies, especially in the second act.
Kerri Lea Robbins' costumes are whimsical and occasionally eye-popping, Suzanne Seiber's choreography is right on, and pianist Meagan Iverson and violinist Crystal Reeves, with the direction of Hillgartner, help to tell the tale without ever intruding.
If you're in the mood for a night of light, musical comedy, this one is bully.
