At the Darkhorse Theater
Women in Theatre’s Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson
Sherlock Holmes is a cultural phenomenon that has been massive since the 1880’s, from almost the beginning of the detective genre. While everybody knows Edgar Alan Poe’s The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart, what is lesser-known is that he invented the detective genre of fiction. His three Dupin stories are fascinating (The Purloined Letter has a special place in my heart), but Sherlock Holmes series reached full development of the genre, and has maintained its cultural significance. The novels and stories are imminently rereadable and in so many different delightful editions. Stephen Fry’s audiobook collection of the series is absolutely perfect, and everybody has their own favorite film version. The character of Sherlock is mysterious while fully developed, allowing for countless reimaginings of his personality; recently his chaotic, drug addicted side was emphasized in Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal, his cold and inhuman side in Benedict Cumberbatch’s.
I was curious going into the dress rehearsal for Women in Theatre’s production of Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson: Apt 2B. It is written by Kate Hamill, the most produced playwright in the US for close to a decade. Most of her plays are award-winning reimaginings of famous public domain classics: Little Women, Dracula, The Odyssey, The Scarlet Letter. What aspects of Sherlock’s personality would be focused on, what would a female version be like?
The show gender-swaps only the two lead roles. Sherlock and Watson aren’t markedly different in being female, so much as they are in the tone chosen for them and some aspects of the character’s sexuality. This Sherlock focuses more on the childish side of the character’s nature: fatigue at other people’s slowness; desire for difficult mysteries; poor social skills; a strange blending of hyperspecialized knowledge and swathes of unexpectedly comical ignorance. This Watson isn’t an ex-soldier, but an American ex-doctor with her own baggage that she refuses to talk about and which originally interests Sherlock in her. Lestrade is a bumbling and deferential detective who follows Sherlock around.
Irene Adler appears in only one Sherlock Holmes story: A Scandal in Bohemia. A soon-to-wed royal is afraid that she could blackmail him after an affair they had a few years before, and hires Sherlock to try to steal back a G-rated photo of them together. She is a non-criminal American opera singer who outsmarts Sherlock. There is no romance between them. While my reading of Sherlock Holmes has always found him to be asexual, many adaptations understandably want to include romantic tension, and Irene Adler provides that. The show Sherlock even makes her a dominatrix, and my one disappointment in Kate Hamill’s adaptation is that she decides to stick with this interpretation of Adler where her main personality trait is seductiveness.
Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson: Apt 2B is an approachable adaptation in two acts, running a little over two hours long with intermission. The show blends some of the most famous plots from different novels and stories, setting them in 2021. The show interacts with our general ideas about Sherlock Holmes, including the phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson,” which for some reason irks purists since technically it never appeared in the original stories (I’ve never understood why). Thoroughly American, don’t expect dry British humor; prepare for lighthearted slapstick and deliberate hamminess. This adaptation clearly loves the source material, sometimes sticking to the original material and sometimes parodying it. Director Diane Bearden-Enright adds to this humor with the incidental music, which is deliberately campy.
This show is put on by Women in Theatre Nashville (WIT). Started in 2023, the young company picks plays of all sorts: recent productions have been the intimate and profound Tiny Beautiful Things, What the Constitution Means to Me and The Revolutionists.
This play is written for four actors: Elyse Dawson is an energetic and childish Sherlock, and Beth Henderson is an exasperated down-and-out Watson. The two other actors get to play many different roles: Skylar Cole is Lestrade and others, and my favorite of the bunch, Jen Houghton, is Irene Adler and others. Everyone has space to lean into their characters, and there are some delightful wigs as parts of the many costumes.
The set mainly depicts apartment 2B, Holmes and Watson’s shared space, with appropriately strange decor, from skeletons to violins. Sherlock has a glass pipe, a boombox, and makes good use of an impressive sword. In one moment of clever staging, the characters arrive at a grisly crime scene. We’re spared the absurdly ridiculous gore revealed through dialogue, but an unexpected and comedically effective amount of blood is pored over them as they stand in a kiddie pool.
Tying in perfectly with the sudden arrival of autumn in Nashville, this play is a fun way for you to interact with the season, especially if you’re more pumpkin spice than horror-Halloween. The Darkhorse Theater has ample free parking across the street and many restaurants and bars in easy walking distance, matching the show’s London urban feel.
Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson: Apt 2B will be at Darkhorse Theater through November 1. For tickets and more information, see Women in Theatre Nashville’s website.
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A Nashville native and MTSU graduate, Grace Krenz is a reader, a writer, and an arts enthusiast. She lives in Nashville with her husband and two children.
