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If would take a very clever series of deductions to figure out just why we've fallen so hard, again, for mystery stories turning on the bromance between tweedy supersleuth Sherlock Holmes and his commenting-on-the-action sidekick, Dr. John Watson.
There are plenty of clues to reveal the outsized pop-culture love of this fictional odd couple. Consider the box-office-smashing big-screen chemistry between Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes and Jude Law's Watson. And then there's the mesmerizing, career-making faceoff of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman from BBC's "Sherlock."
Now Utah Shakepeare Festival offers the stage matchup of Utah-reared actor J. Todd Adams as Sherlock, paired with the comic acuity of Brian Vaughn as Watson. "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" opened the fall season this week at the Cedar City company along with "Boeing Boeing," French playwright Marc Camoletti's 1960s-era vintage farce about a playboy who is secretly engaged to three airline stewardesses at the same time.
Continuing its run is the music-infused production of Shakespeare's twin-centered comedy, "Twelfth Night," which Tribune reviewer Barbara Bannon lauded for its hilarity. The cast's comedic performances have deepened and evolved over the play's summer run, while the story's melancholy notes seem well-suited to autumn performances, says David Ivers, USF's co-artistic director, who directed the show. "Tonally, the play shifts so much, and we tried to honor that."
The three plays are loosely linked by themes of anonymity, as central characters who have donned trickery or disguises come to reveal themselves, Ivers says.
Regarding the iconic power of the character of Sherlock Holmes, Ivers riffs on crime-solving comparisons to deduce the power of our long-running infatuation with the witty, sardonic detective, who's also a tortured drug addict. "He's like the superhero before DC Comics," Ivers says. Or the inventive paper clip-bending detective MacGyver, or the suave "shaken, not stirred" James Bond.
Wait: Comparing Sherlock Holmes, he of the deerstalker cap, tweed cape and curved pipe, to James Bond, he of the tuxedo, the dry martini and leggy Bond girls? How's that again?
They're both going to exotic locations in the hunt to solve some sort of crime, Ivers says of the comparison, laughing, in a phone interview. "Sherlock is like the first MacGyver, the first James Bond, the outthink-the-enemy hero. He's difficult, stubborn, principled, and thinks he has all the answers. And frankly, he has proven that he does, which is maddening."
In Stephen Dietz's contemporary stage adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and actor William Gillette's 1899 play, the detective is contemplating retirement before he's presented with an intriguing case. The King of Bohemia is threatened with blackmail over a photograph that might link him to the famous opera singer Irene Adler.
The plot thickens thanks to an entanglement between Holmes and Adler. "She is as smart as he is, which is a surprise to him, and throws him off his game a bit," Adams says. There are also complications that arise from the scheming of Holmes' archnemesis, criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty.
Ivers describes the script as "wildly episodic," moving from location to location, country to country, in overlapping scenes, while the show depends on the onstage chemistry between the actors playing Watson and Holmes. And that depends on playfulness, says Ivers, who raves about the terrific interplay between Adams and Vaughn.
"You want Watson to be aware of all the maddening things that Holmes does, and that kind of makes Watson a bit of a stuffed shirt, without having to do it with tweed," Ivers says.
In Doyle's original stories, Sherlock Holmes considers solving crimes a game, referring to a client as a "unit." "It takes Watson to bring that human element and to humanize [Sherlock]," Adams says of his character's sidekick. "Watson is not a bumbling fool, but a necessary component, a daring person himself. He's smart, but nobody is as smart as Sherlock, of course. He needs Watson to stabilize him, for a moral compass almost."
For Adams, 45, an American Fork native and Brigham Young University graduate, the role of Sherlock Holmes offered an opportunity to return to Utah and to the Utah Shakespeare Festival, where he last performed in 1992.
The English literature major, who went on to earn a master's from San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater, overprepared to don Holmes' cape by reading all 56 Sherlock Holmes stories and four novels. "He's got issues of his own that sort of drive him to need to play this game, to solve these crimes, to keep his mind active," Adams says. "If he's not solving a case, his mind races and breaks apart."
The script offers the actor plenty of stage business, as Sherlock Holmes' pockets are constantly filled with clutter, ranging from letters and telegrams to cigarette cases, bullets and a revolver. Then there are the bigger props, such as a cane, a violin and various items of drug paraphernalia. Also, there are the disguises involving hats and wigs and scarfs and glasses.
Adams, who studied violin in his youth, hasn't played the instrument much in his past 20 years as a Los Angeles- and New York-based itinerant actor. The script calls for Holmes to finger the violin, and that's provided a great opportunity for the actor to refamiliarize himself with the instrument. "I'm actually making some sounds and hopefully it will be music by the time we open," Adams says.
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When the game, or the play, is afoot
P Utah Shakespeare Festival's new fall season shows are "Boeing Boeing," by Marc Camoletti, directed by Christopher L. Moore; and "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure," adapted by Steven Dietz from the original 1899 play by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, directed by J.R. Sullivan. The new shows join the extended run of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," directed by David Ivers.
When • 2 and 7:30 p.m., through Oct. 18 (no shows on Sundays and Mondays)
Where • 351 W. Center St., Southern Utah University campus, Cedar City
Tickets • $32-$73; at 800-PLAYTIX, bard.org