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Editor's Notes | Acknowledgements | REVIEWS
Chris
Jones (Chicago Tribune) | Hedy
Weiss (Chicago Sun-Times)
Albert Williams (Chicago Reader)
Mary Shen Barnidge (Windy City Times) | Virginia
Gerst (Evanston Review)
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
(7/2/2003)
Windy City Times
Talk about artistic daring! In an age when most plays strive to be more
like
movies, the firm of Shanghai Low Theatricals-Steve Pickering, Charlie
Athanas and Kevin Theis-offer playgoers a return to the cogitative pleasures
of the literary whodunit, featuring the kind of genius supersleuth existing
today only in Vincent D'Onofrio's Bobby Goren on television's Law And
Order:
Criminal Intent. But if this adventure of Sherlock Holmes (the supersleuth
who founded the genre) is like reading a book, its lengthy exposition
acquainting us with the secret pacts, vows of vengeance and search for
lost
treasure that propels the intrigue-well, once "the game is afoot," we
can't
turn the pages fast enough.
Deciding how to play this material is also a challenging proposition-the
actors must take their roles seriously, but not TOO seriously, or audiences
will giggle for sheer relief. But the cast assembled by Steve Pickering
for
this world-premiere production, while their enjoyment at working with
one
another is palpable, never succumb to self-contained insularity, but
make
coherence and dignity their goal throughout-even in the humorous moments
when Holmes and Watson bicker over the former's image as rendered public
by
the latter, or both quail like schoolboys before the wrath of their
housekeeper.
Michael Grant emerges as an aloof, but not bloodless, Holmes (uttering
things like "My mind rebels at stagnation. I crave mental exaltation!" with
aplomb, but seeming not to mind when his sidekicks assist in the detection),
flanked by Joe Forbrich, cast against type as the courtly Dr. Watson,
and
Kate Martin as the courageous Miss Mary Morstan. The eight remaining
ensemble members constitute a multiethnic dream team (featuring, among
others, Linda Kimbrough, Larry Neumann, Jr., Parvesh Cheena, Anish
Jethmalani, Deaf Bailiwick Artists' Ronald Jui and the protean Bill McGough)
create a score of vividly etched personalities, thanks to Jill Walmsley
Zager's dialect instruction. And Jacqueline and Richard Penrod's scenic
design on Apple Tree's tupenny-sized stage suggests five-story London
mansions and fog-bound shipyards with the simplest of devices.
The Sign Of The Four is escapist fare at its coziest. Why not curl up
with a
good play this evening?
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