Theater Review: 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'

On the southern coast of England, there’s a legend people tell. No, not “The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh.” The other legend. The one about the hell hound that patrols the Devonshire moors sinking his fangs into minor British nobility due to an ancient family curse. We refer, of course, to “The Hound of the Baskervilles” — the subject of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tail, sorry, tale, and Steven Canny and John Nicholson’s irreverent adaptation, now playing at Florida Studio Theatre.

In the tradition of “The 39 Steps” and “Around the World in 80 Days,” it’s a quick-change farce in which a small cast (in this case, three guys) play a vast assortment of characters. Here, Doyle’s original story, its characters and the various bits of business survive more or less intact. The missing shoe, the bearded cab passenger, they’re all here — although Inspector Lestrade appears to be missing. The Hound is played by a hound-shaped hole in the backdrop.

The plot? Well, the story’s in public domain. You can easily look it up. Suffice to say that the spectral Hound is a fraud, made to glow with phosphorescent paint to give the weak-hearted Baskerville heir a cardiac incident and cheat him of his inheritance.

Doyle asked you to take this premise seriously. Canny and John Nicholson do not. This is not the mocking mirror of stylistic parody seen in “Young Frankenstein” or, for that matter, “The 39 Steps.” The playwrights don’t try to reproduce (or spoof) the tale’s tone. They play Doyle’s story as a springboard for silliness. (The clash of serious subject matter and silly style is the whole point.) And bringing the clash to life …

Tom Patterson plays the boyish Sir Henry Baskerville; Patrick Noonan plays the self-impressed Sherlock Holmes; and Michael Daly plays the trigger-happy Dr. Watson. They play everybody else too, and list their various roles in a breezy summary before the play starts. These include yokels, oversexed South American wives, butlers, cabbies, a physically challenged naturalist and a train conductor. It was too fast to write down so, for the sake of brevity, let’s stick with “everyone else.” The point is, they’re funny.

Director Gavin Cameron-Webb sets the thespic machinery in motion. It immediately begins grinding and emitting smoke and then repeatedly breaks down. (That’s why it’s funny.)

So, forget Doyle’s original story. The frame story around the play is a post-modern poke at the machinery of theater (or theatre, for that matter). The production constantly reminds you that the actors are acting — or on the verge of a nervous breakdown. (Tom Patterson evidently suffers from claustrophobia, panic/anxiety disorder or the fantods.) The play deliberately calls attention to its slapdash artifice — including revolving signs announcing “ACT I” or “ACT II.” So, the Canadian heir speaks in an uninflected American accent. Why? Because, as the actor says, “I can’t do a Canadian accent.” An announcer informs us there are no trees on the moor — and a stagehand quickly removes the solitary tree. And when one actor bitterly recounts an audience tweet bemoaning the slow pace of the first act, he flips the signs back to “ACT I” — and the actors instantly recapitulate the first act at frenetic speed. “Are you happy now?” Well, yeah.

This realistically unrealistic comedy owes a huge debt to Monty Python, and The Firesign Theatre as well. Canny and Nicholson never met a pun they didn’t like or a sight gag they wouldn’t stoop to. They’re masters of verbal jiu-jitsu and missed understandings. For example:

Sir Henry: There are no flies on you, sir.

Dr. Watson: Not at this time of year.

All that and continual pokes, asides, implications and insinuations of a bromance between Watson and Holmes.

Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay’s set design and Martha Bromelmeier’s costumes suit the playful spirit of the thing. It’s all very well thought out — while pretending to be improvised.

And let’s be nice and sparkling clear. Slick it isn’t. The cross-dressers are unconvincing. The fake beards are screamingly fake. If good art is the imitation of life, bad art is the bad imitation of life. This play is a good imitation of that. Camp, in other words.

In all seriousness, the BBC’s “Sherlock” won’t air until 2016 and Robert Downey Jr.’s probably done with the character. If you need a good Sherlock Holmes mystery, aside from Basil Rathbone reruns, you’re going to have to wait.

If you need a good laugh at Holmes’ expense, this is the scene of the crime.