SHERLOCK HOLMES THE PLAY: THE GAME IS NOT AFOOT

Apparently I'm not a great detective. In the Case of the Overhyped Hollywood HasBeen Who Tries for Redemption on the Stage, I missed or misread a lot of the clues

A play not quite finished by a deceased Canadian playwright. A show that did not make it on to the Mirvish Productions season playlist. And a lead actor who's theatre and even screen credits are, shall we say, inconclusive

We've seen many plays that have featured well known "screen" stars: Donald Sutherland, Kathleen Turner, Angela Lansbury, Judd Hirsch, and it has always been a great experience, watching these actors in the intimate setting of live theatre

Many of these actors, all of them certainly, got their start in theatre and it always show in these performances: Angela Lansbury in Blythe Spirit was a revelation, this 80 years plus woman had energy and stamina that was barely matched by her much younger cast mates. That's what you should get from a live performance

This brings us back to our mystery. Sherlock Holmes. A great character who has been portrayed by man great actors: Basil Rathbone, Robert Downey, Jeremy Brett, Nicol Williamson, Johnny Lee Miller. Holmes is a character into which a lot of nuance can be worked, he is open to interpretation while still remaining true to his essence

Now to this list of actors we can add David Arquette. Yeh, David Arquette. Probably not a name that comes instantly to your mind when thinking about actors. Good or bad. He's been around a while, he's made a wide variety of movies and TV and even was involved in pro wrestling.

I associate him mostly with comedy and with playing characters who may not be the sharpest paring knife in the knife block. But hey, that's acting and pro actors often fall into the roles in which people want to see them

Well, sometimes actors just portray what they may actually be. In this case, pretty damn bad. Arquette's British accent is terrible, it's more like the impression of a bad British accent. Sometimes that's not so bad, there are hints of satire in the play. What was really bad was the man's unprofessionalism. The guy has been a working actor for a long time, his credit list is pretty long, but all those credits are movies and TV, retakes allowed. This is live theatre

He constantly was dropping his lines. And when he did so, his reaction was to giggle. The Watson character was played by an understudy and he also struggled with his lines and finding his mark on the stage This is not something to which I'm accustomed in a Mirvish production. Even in those plays I didn't enjoy, you always got an entirely professional production. We have seen many understudies over the years and have never been disappointed in their performances

There are many problems with the play itself. It has its moments, there are some very good Monty Python like comedy set ups and there was one decent scene between Holmes and Watson that expressed some emotional concerns. But there are also some bizarre Greek chorus-like scenes of exposition with the entire cast and a dream sequence that seemed the template for how not to do a dream sequence All of this made the play disjointed, whatever comedy energy was built was often smacked in the teeth; there was blood everywhere

There were also issues with the audio levels, the music (way too much of it and way necessary, this isn't a musical) often overwhelmed the dialogue, but perhaps I didn't miss much

The final straw was the final scene; the very end of the play has the entire cast assembled and in response to an exchange between Holmes and Watson, the cast is to shout out "Elementary!" They didn't even get that right, I think Arquette giggled through it

So yes, I am a bad bad detective. But in comparison to this Sherlock Holmes, I'm fucking brilliant