Attention, Sherlock Holmes fans! Attention, Scrooge/Tiny Tim fans! Attention, potential Arthur Conan Doyle-Charles Dickens fans! You all need to know that playwright-director Mark Shanahan has the perfect holiday gift for you.
He calls it A Sherlock Carol, and it’s the result of a show-stopping inspiration he’s had. He’s blended Dickens’ beloved A Christmas Carol with Conan Doyle’s greatest character. Does the very idea sound dubious, exploitational, the latest Yuletide commercial rip-off? That’s what I suspected when I took my seat, only and blessedly to be disabused of that cynical notion within seconds of its taking the stage.
Before I dive jovially into it, I need to say that Conan Doyle and Dickens readers, as well as those who’ve seen screen adaptations of the popular works (e. g. The Seventh Percent Solution, Nicholas Meyer’s novel and film version), will get the references. Those who haven’t should be intrigued, nonetheless.
Okay then, Sherlock Holmes (Drew McVety) is back in London after vanquishing longtime nemesis Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Believing he no longer has a motivation to detect, he’s trying to put that all behind him. In the process, he even cuts himself off from Doctor Watson (Mark Price) and, worse, shows signs of becoming a Scrooge-like figure. That’s a Scrooge-like figure from the days before Scrooge was visited by ghosts of the past, present and future and turned himself into a beloved member of society.
Repeatedly muttering “Bah” (without the “humbug”), Holmes at first refuses Emma Wiggins (Anissa Felix), when she comes to him with the news that kindly old Scrooge has been murdered and that her father, Scrooge’s attendant, has been charged with stealing the Blue Carbuncle. The subject of Sherlock’s talent is discussed, to which he responds that talent is often an affliction. That pronounced negativity is a sign of the new Scrooge in him.
Still, Holmes takes on the case, getting in contact with old acquaintances and potential murderers. Among those contacted is The Countess (Isabel Keating), who turns out to be Holmes’ longtime romantic attachment, Irene Adler. Now a titled lady, she does admit she was born in Trenton, New Jersey. There’s Doctor Timothy Cratchit (Dan Domingues), who’s none other than Tiny Tim, now grown and a successful physician thanks to Scrooge’s benevolent support.
No need to go on about the ins and out of Shanahan’s witty and delightfully convoluted plot. It can be mentioned that Holmes goes on a literal and figurative wild goose chase, having something to do with a missing blue carbuncle diamond stuffed into a Christmas goose. The object is a gem that the Countess insists she’d sent Scrooge but which has gone missing (See: Conan Doyle’s “Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”).
Also, it should be mentioned that the ghost of Scrooge (Thom Sesma) appears to Holmes, who, while maintaining there are no such things as ghosts, eventually comes to his post-Moriarty senses and, you guessed it, solves the mystery with acidic good cheer.
That’s to say, the perfect murder, which is revealed not to be perfect at all, is the sole A Sherlock Carol element that isn’t perfection itself. The elegant Anna Louizos set, with its false proscenium and myriad set-pieces carried on and carted away by the cast, is perfect. Linda Cho’s seemingly endless array of quickly changed costumes is perfect. Charles G. Lapointe’s hair and wig designs are perfect. John Gromada’s sound and original music are perfect.
As for the cast members: perfect. Besides the most prominent roles they’ve taken on, all but McVety and Sesma appear as numerous others, often as jolly Victorian narrators and carolers. By fade-out on the two-act frolic, Keating, Felix, Price, and Domingues must feel as if they’ve run a marathon.
With every Christmas season, many creators set their sights on introducing a possible seasonal staple, something enduring like Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” or Johnny Marks’ “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or Simon Callow’s Christmas Carol reading as Dickens. Dickens did that, too, and I submit that now Mark Shanahan has done it.
Incidentally, McVety not only plays Sherlock Holmes with great grit but is also listed as one of the producers. Maybe he sees himself as the next William Gillette, who made a celebrated career of playing Sherlock Holmes.
Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is a lifelong subscription to A Sherlock Carol.
A Sherlock Carol opened November 22, 2021, at New World Stages and runs through January 2, 2022. Tickets and information: asherlockcarol.com
