Sherlock Holmes

Without a real overhaul, Sherlock Holmes will please only that elfin six-year-old who accompanies Wolcott Gibbs when he lightly pans a play. Simply the usual "polishing and tightening" which a Boston tryout promiscs will not prevent a waste of considerable talent, talent scarcely evident in the ragged performance on Monday night. With Basil Rathbone cast in his famous role, a script by Ouida Rathbone based faithfully though eclectically on five of Conan Doyle's best stories, and the rather curious but impressive attraction of Jarmila Novotna in the cast, it is hard to believe that the producers can't eventually come up with something better than they have.

At present, the inept acting and direction of Sherlock Holmes produces an embarrassing result--the play is often ridiculous. Trying to show veneration for Doyle's famous characters, the producers have made the play a self-conscious period piece, with actors delivering Victorian phrases with an earnest flamboyance better suited to East Lynne. Efforts to maintain action and focus interest on the stage are even more lamentable. The enormous cast keeps the stage constantly cluttered, particularly since some of the sets have at least four doors or windows which spew forth actors from time to time. Two of the sets, the Baker Street flat and a mountain chalet, are excellent, but the partitioning of the stage to present flashbacks which could be far better expressed in a sentence of dialogue makes the clutter hopeless. In the general disarray, the involved tale of the stolen Bruce-Partington plans is all the more difficult to follow.

The great disappointment of Sherlock Holmes, however, is the quality of the principals' performances. While Nigel Bruce played Watson as a slow, but solid aide to Holmes, Jack Raine makes him a retarded Colonel Blimp, rather mildly interested in Holmes' adventures. Similarly, Thomas Gomez is badly miscast as Professor Moriarity. Though unctuously sinister, Gomez looks more like an indigent music teacher than a Napoleon of crime. His great girth and flowing hair hardly suit the "lean, ascetic" arch-criminal of Doyle's imagination.

In the huge role of Holmes, Rathbone is a dismaying surprise. He has replaced his familiar and appropriately austere Holmes with an agitated, unimposing figure. Further, with Rathbone blowing every fourth line of a part he has apparently yet to learn, Holmes seems down-right muddleheaded. The effect is even greater, since the script grants Holmes few flashes of genius. Often the villains seem to be humoring the poor sleuth, as, when hiding behind a curtain in a singer's dressing room or disguised in a Rasputin beard, Holmes fools neither the lady for Moriarity for an instant.

If the producers can persuade Rathbone to study his part and play Holmes rather than a House Dick, they can cure the major ill of the play. To make Sherlock Holmes effective, however, they must dispense with the flashbacks, the muddled staging, and the exaggerations of acting in the minor roles. In the meantime, Ouida must straighten out the story line, which now leaves justice inexplicably triumphant in the last act. Certainly the present state of Sherlock Holmes, with the sole assets of Steward Chaney's sets and the charming, if superfluous Mme. Novotna, will not satisfy Doyle addicts, who have waited since the days of William Gillete for Holmes' return to the stage.