Chagrin Valley Little Theatre

Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure by Steven Dietz

Performance Dates & Tickets

About the Play

It takes an enormous amount of planning to create a random event...

Directed by Alex Nine

Special GALA DINNER EVENT!
March 29th, 6:00 PM
Enjoy great food, a great show, and great earlybird parking when you join us for this special pre-show dinner! Twiinz Catering will provide Hors D'ouevres, Mixed Green Salad, Beef Tenderloin, Blue Cheese Soufflé, Green Beans with Almonds, English Trifle, Coffee, Tea, Red & White Wine, all in the theatre's own River Room!

Tickets are $60 per guest. Seating is limited.
Deadline for reservations March 26th.
Event reservations available by phone - call 440-247-8955 today!

Could this really be Sherlock Holmes' final case? Could the ultimately logical, thoroughly dispassionate detective who has survived poison, pistols and other precarious perils actually be laid low by... his love for opera diva, Irene Adler? His arch nemesis, the wicked Professor Moriarty believes so. And despite the best efforts of Holmes and his loyal sidekick Dr. Watson, Moriarty may just be right. Whenever Holmes is on the case, you're in for a night on the edge of your seat--filled with suspense, mystery, drama and a healthy dose of humor. It’s elementary, my dear Watson! In this thrilling new play, passion and intellect collide, and the most insignificant clue can unlock the deepest secrets of the mind and heart.

Cast
Charles Leonard as Sherlock Holmes
Alex Nine as Dr. Watson
Brenda Redmond as Irene Adler
Michael Rogan as Professor Moriarty
Greg Bealer as The King of Bohemia
Neil Donnelly as James Larrabee
Chris White as Madge Larrabee
Terry Blair as Sid Prince
Brendon Berns and Barry Friedman, Ensemble Players

Production Staff
Alex Nine - Director
Greta Rothman - Producer
Laurel Bryant - Stage Manager
Amy Pelleg - Assistant Stage Manager
Karen Ann Ware - Costume Designer

Actors Solve Holmes 'Adventure'
by Herb Hammer
Chagrin Valley Times

Those who missed last October’s Cleveland Play House production of "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" have been given a new opportunity to see the play. Chagrin Valley Little Theatre is staging its own version of Steven Dietz’s remake of two Holmes stories rolled into one.

Comparing the production qualities of these two stagings would be unfair. The Play House is a big-budget professional company, while CVLT is a community theater forced to perform on the cheap.  But take nothing away from the CVLT actors, who are at least equal to or perhaps somewhat better than the company that performed at the Play House.

Sherlock Holmes’ fans will surely be delighted with "The Final Adventure." Others may be troubled by the formal style of Edwardian London. Mr. Dietz has adapted his script in order to stay true to Arthur Conan Doyle’s original concept. The style may be stiff, but it adds to the fun.

The stories Mr. Dietz has put together are from "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Adventure of the Final Problem." Both were short plays originally performed over 100 years ago.

Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ loyal friend, is summoned to Holmes’ lodgings on Baker Street. Holmes has problems, his cocaine habit being one of them.  Before the real story begins, what there is of it, Holmes reminds the audience of his powers of deduction, and then, as he must, follow it with, "Elementary, my dear Watson.”

As in all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s books and plays, Dr. Watson narrates. Soon after Watson arrives, the King of Bohemia swoops in and employs Holmes to obtain a compromising photograph, a result of a past affair with famed opera star Irene Adler. The photograph, he believes, will ruin his upcoming marriage.  This case soon becomes entangled with the evil Professor Moriarty, Holmes' arch enemy.

For the first time anywhere, Sherlock Holmes falls in love. He is taken in with the beautiful Irene Adler, but the affair is short-lived. It’s the action Mr. Dietz is compelled to continue. With smoke bombs, police whistles and intended gassing of Holmes by Professor Moriarty, combined with across-continental race against time, the play comes to its deadly conclusion.

What’s wrong with this play? Well, practically everything. The plot is intentionally confusing. The combining of two plays is part of the problem. The slow, stiff manner and gentlemanly behavior that upper-class Edwardians apparently subscribe to can be hard to take.  It’s the characters and the actors who play them that win out in the end.

Charles Leonard is the perfect Holmes, tall, lean, with his hair slicked back and his slow straight ahead speech. Why, you might imagine Conan Doyle did the casting. Director Alex Nine has stepped in to play Dr. Watson, the good-hearted, sometimes bumbling narrator. Mr. Nine is right on the money in the role and a splendid complement to Mr. Leonard.  Michael Rogan plays Professor Moriarty in sharp contrast to his enemies. Rogan is excellent in the role. Greg Bealer, as the King of Bohemia, adds a great deal of humor to the dry script. Brenda Redmond is a delight as Irene, the famed opera star.

Alex Nine directs exactly as the play is written in its quirky, off-beat manner. The set by Edmund Wolff has an overhead transparent opening where characters perform out of the sight of those on stage. Whole scenes slide in and out of an enormous flat background. Mr. Wolff does his very best with the climactic scene, which doesn’t really work at all. This, I assume, must be a budget problem.

Although certain scenes border on the melodramatic and others on the ridiculous, “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" is a highly entertaining adaptation of Conan Doyle’s stories.

About the Playwright

Steven Dietz is one of America's most widely-produced contemporary playwrights. Since 1983, his twenty-plus plays have been seen at over one hundred regional theatres in the United States, as well as Off-Broadway. International productions have been seen in England, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Sweden, Austria, Russia, Slovenia, Argentina, Peru, Singapore and South Africa. His work has been translated into seven languages.

Dietz’s recent plays include, Last of the Boys, Sherlock Homes: The Final Adventure, and Honus and Me. Current projects include commissioned plays for Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago), ACT Theatre (Seattle), and the Denver Center Theatre Company.

Dietz received the 2002 Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award for his play Fiction, produced Off-Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre Company. He also received the 1994 PEN USA West Award in Drama for his play Lonely Planet; the 1996 Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award for Still Life With Iris; and the 1995 Yomuiri Shimbun Award (the Japanese "Tony") for his adaptation of Shusaku Endo's novel Silence. Other widely produced plays include God’s Country, Private Eyes, The Nina Variations, Trust, Rocket Man, Halcyon Days, Ten November, and Follin’ Around With Infinity.

A native of Denver, Colorado, Dietz began his career as a director of new plays in Minneapolis, before moving to Seattle in 1991. He recently accepted a professorship at the University of Texas at Austin, which will began in the fall of 2006.