Photo: Madison Patterson
I’ve seen a few one-man or one-woman plays over the years and they’ve all had one thing in common: monotony. Being exposed to that kind of sameness adds up when you’re facing a lone actor strutting and fretting their ass off for 90 minutes or more—tasked with embodying the same persona for the entirety of the work. Exhausting.
With those experiences coming menacingly to mind, I found myself holding my rolling eyeballs from popping out of my head when I discovered that The Hound of the Baskervilles at the American Shakespeare Center would feature only three actors and one foley-focused musician perched above during the play.
The program revealed that Christopher Joel Onken would play Sherlock Holmes and five other roles; Justin McCombs, Watson and a local; and Topher Embrey would take on both Baskervilles and three other characters as well.
While I was aware that I was in for a comedy, I was preemptively restless about whether this two-hour piece (with a 15-minute intermission) would engage me enough to stay alert through the fog-filled drive back from Staunton. I’m happy to report that my worries were all for naught.
This Sir Arthur Conan Doyle book adapted by Steven Canny and John Nicholson in 2018 is not only hysterical, it’s performed with the kind of skillful, swift zing that only a vaudeville veteran from a century ago or a fully functioning Shakespearean actor could ever hope to pull off.
In this case, there were three such actors. Onken, McCombs, and Embrey singularly and collaboratively dropped sharply etched punchlines with precision and caused an outsized amount of hubbub with physical gags—the likes of which I haven’t witnessed since the last time I watched the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera.
Discussing the show’s highest points and unique twists without giving away any spoilers is difficult, but I’m going to try since nothing takes the gas out of good bits like being privy to them before they arrive.
The plot of Doyle’s mystery about a monstrous supernatural dog is, of course, not a comedy at all. Yet given the preposterous nature of both the plot and Holmes’ ludicrous analytical prowess, the play is ripe for this kind of pomposity.
ASC is no stranger to anachronistic turns in the canon of plays regularly presented, recostumed, regendered, and relocated. It was surprising to see how director Brian Isaac Phillips went about keeping The Hound entrenched in the spooky moors of its original English West Country setting while infusing the whole event with goofy contemporary references and a wholly enjoyable meta quality.
As we follow Dr. Watson investigating the legend of the deadly dog that has been torturing generations of Baskervilles, Holmes opts to take a back seat for the bulk of this case. Instead he spies on his sidekick to see if Watson can solve the enigma without his help.
McCombs makes sure to tell us at the onset that Watson is the real hero of the play,if for no other reason than for the sheer number of his lines, which he points out. The script fits McCombs’ abilities and his easy manner at being flummoxed; his natural gift with humor beams to the rafters.
Having recognized McCombs’ strengths, it’s only fair, even crucial, to point out the equally impressive skills of his fellow actors, Onken and Embrey. Onken’s pointed manner could be the origin of the term whipsmart, given the timbre and velocity of his retorts combined with a truly uproarious physicality in his delivery. He dashes from one character to the next in seconds—becoming a seductress, a lunatic, a ridiculously disguised Holmes—all breathlessly.
Ember, on the other hand, offers the kind of singular presence and wall-shaking voice that captivates, and only relents at the sound of audience laughter. The man is an unshakeably dignified straight man one minute, desperate and spellbound the next, and dropping zingers in the following moment.
Regarding the foley sound-effect contributions of Christopher Seiler, his effusive megaphone howling and odd early radio landscapes imbue the play with a three-dimensional depth that it would otherwise be sorely lacking. I wish I could say the same about his mostly late boomer/Gen X song selection that fills in scene changes; stock acoustic guitar versions of “Gonna Buy Me a Dog” and “Li’l Red Riding Hood” felt a bit trite, corny, and kind of unnecessary.
But all is forgiven. Especially after one brilliant turn in the story during the introduction of an amusing, short-lived subplot at the start of the second act. Without revealing too much, an incredulous Onken falls out of character and goes bonkers over discovering what sounds suspiciously like the kind of bad review I might have submitted—had I despised his schtick. Luckily for me—and by extension everyone considering spending an evening on the imaginary moors—that is most certainly not the case.
