Gold Coast review – Moriarty: a mystery packed play

By Douglas Kennedy

Moriarty

By Ken Ludwig

Javeenbah Theatre Company.

Directed by Taylor Holmes

By arrangement with OriGin Theatrical on behalf of Samuel French. A Concord Theatricals Company.

Running time one hour 45 minutes.  The season ends August 16.

American playwright Ken Ludwig, of Lend Me a Tenor fame, has taken a deep dive into the world of Sherlock Holmes with his latest work named for the consulting detective’s nemesis, Moriarty.

Ken Ludwig’s Moriarty is billed as a comedy-drama, but in reality, is more fun than funny with his Holmes shining as a parody complete with deer stalker and exaggerated mannerisms.

(Who goes to the opera or comes out of their bedroom in the morning wearing a deerstalker?)

The new Holmes adventure, which premiered in Cleveland two years ago, begins as an investigation into the Bohemian king’s stolen letters and blossoms into a mystery packed play with spies, blackmail and intrigue.

Just like in Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s short story, A Scandal in Bohemia, Moriarty, introduces the closest Holmes ever had to a love interest in the shape of the intriguing American actress, Irene Adler, who had a brief affair with the Bohemian king, and exchanged comprising letters.

Now as the king is about to marry, the letters are stolen, and he engages Holmes and his faithful sidekick and biographer, Dr John Watson, to get them back.

Soon the ‘game is a foot’, a phrase used in at least one Holmes adventure story, and our two intrepid adventures are almost drowning in twists and turns.

Ludwig sports a vivid imagination and, in creating this cartoonish world of mystery, takes his audience on a journey far away from the horrors of the real world seen nightly on the evening news.

Director Taylor Holmes, no relation to our fictional character of course, has done a sterling job of guiding her five actors through a total of more than 40 characters.

That’s really three actors playing the bulk of the parts as Elijah Haze’s Holmes and Rin Greenwood’s Watson play only their one role,

It’s no mean feat creating multiple roles on stage – as parts can appear muddled and confusing - but the trio of Jessica White, Nathan French and Olivia French (no relation) – showcase their cameos with aplomb.

The audience could sense – or at least this member could – that the trio were having a ton of fun hamming up their characterisations and that’s infectious.

Coming out of the Nerang theatre after a Sunday afternoon matinee this reviewer felt quite relaxed and at one with a world that for a while, at least, didn’t seem so terrible at all.

The production crew, which ran to nearly a dozen, deserves a special mention for being the bricks and mortar under Taylor Holmes direction which held the production together.

For anyone looking for a break from this world’s harsh realities, this reviewer recommends a dose of Ken Ludwig’s Moriarty.

THE END