UW-Whitewater Presents "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes will be presented by the Aquila Theatre company at UW-Whitewater on October 21.




For more ticket and time details, follow the hyperlink above. For details about the company, go to http://www.aquilatheatre.com/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holmes. There are some great pictures from the production on their website.




"The legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, takes the stage in this witty, fast paced production by the acclaimed Aquila Theatre. The clever Holmes skillfully maneuvers the twisted web of London's most intriguing cases with his split second deductions revealing the most intimate details of a person's life. Sherlock is a master of disguise and a brilliant actor, as well as a composer and musician - is there anything Sherlock Holmes can't do? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's vivid characters jump from the page weaving a tale of suspense and intrigue. In addition to Holmes, many of Doyle's other well known creations are on hand such as; the trusted sidekick Dr. Watson and Irene Adler, the woman who got away, and the only woman to have won Sherlock's respect. Doyle, in addition to being an author, was also a physician. He infused Holmes with terrific skills in forensic science and logical reasoning. One hundred and twenty five years after his debut, Sherlock Holmes remains the definitive and most famous detective in world literature. The Aquila Theatre brings its energetic physical style to this new adaptation for the theater. With actors drawn from the top British and American stages, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a thrilling and memorable ride."


Of course, there is at least one member of the Original Tree Worshippers who would disagree with this assessment of Irene Adler as "the only woman to have won Sherlock's respect," a particularly odd statement in a play that also features Violet Hunter. For more on Adler, see: Not the Only Woman: The Point of Irene Adler.

NOT THE ONLY WOMAN: THE POINT OF IRENE ADLER by Resa Haile

Irene Adler isn’t the only woman Holmes respected, and indeed, what kind of point would it be if she were? Then it just says that Holmes met one woman who was worthy of respect; the end. But turn it another way; look at it under this light: Holmes met a woman who made him realize that there was more to women.

Before this (chronologically), he had been sympathetic to women, always ready, with Watson, to take on the role of knight-errant. Mary Morstan even refers to them as such in The Sign of Four. Holmes says of Miss Morstan, now Watson’s fiancée, “I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way; witness the way in which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father.”

There is little evidence in the stories of an active “dislike” of women; although Watson might have been fooled, the reader seldom is. As for a distrust, Holmes didn’t trust anyone, and I would go so far as to say there are examples that show he didn’t trust Watson completely, nor was he worthy of being so trusted himself, which he probably knew. He knew the proscribed conditions of women’s lives, and, because of this, he was not unsympathetic to them.

If meeting Irene Adler opened Holmes' eyes a little further to the fact that women could reach beyond their assigned roles, that’s a much more exciting concept than her point being that she was the one woman who equaled or approached equaling or beat him.

(In fact, there is debate about whether she was the woman mentioned in “The Five Orange Pips,” when Holmes says, “I have been beaten four times—three times by men, and once by a woman.” The case is dated earlier than “A Scandal in Bohemia,” so we are left with the possibilities of misdating or a woman who beat Holmes before Irene Adler, perhaps not such an honorable woman or one so worthy of respect.)

But say that Adler’s narrative function is to make Holmes more aware of the possibilities of women. Mary Morstan had a decided genius for detective work, but she married Watson and was happy with that kind of life. Perhaps it was so for all women. 

Then there is Adler, enjoying playing the game against him, someone with whom he is ultimately more sympathetic than his client. And in the end, she shows the king mercy when she has him in her power; this is what puts her on a “different” (higher) “level” from the king. Holmes is not in love with Adler, but he sees her more clearly in the end, understands and admires her. His education in the matter of brave, intelligent women is underway.

In “The Copper Beeches” (a case usually dated by chronologists as 1890, two years after the date given for “A Scandal in Bohemia”), Violet Hunter functions very much as the investigator on the scene (in his fascinating book, The Secret Marriage of Sherlock Holmes, and Other Eccentric Readings, Michael Atkinson writes that “Violet is as bright and observant as Holmes—and is the better detective”) and wins praise from the consulting detective: “You seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a brave and sensible girl, Miss Hunter. Do you think that you could perform one more feat? I should not ask it of you if I did not think you a quite exceptional woman.”

As late as “The Lion’s Mane,” when Holmes has retired to keep bees in Sussex, he says of Maud Bellamy that “she possessed strong character as well as great beauty” and would “always remain in [his] memory as a most complete and remarkable woman.”

The only woman Sherlock Holmes ever respected? Not by a long shot. An important part of the evolution of his character? Hell, yes.

On Sherlock Holmes and emotion:

He wants to be a calculating machine but he really isn’t. He really absolutely properly isn’t. He’s a quite a moody difficult emotional man is the truth, even in the original, and it’s really fascinating to read the real Doyle and you realise if he thinks a man has wronged a women he’s dragging a riding crop off the wall to beat him up ’cause he’s so angry. He’s actually not at all cold and aloof, he just wants to be and presents that way, but he isn’t, he isn’t at all. But he would like to be.

http://www.universityobserver.ie/2012/02/22/steven-moffat-the-full-transcript/

I mean, he thinks he can solve everything by being sort of cold and remote. Our Sherlock even entertains the idea that he’s above emotion. He’s actually a terribly emotional man and he’s a desperate show-off. And far from being cold and remote, he’s got a bunch of people who look after him. The support team is enormous. He doesn’t quite realize that far from being the invulnerable ice king, he’s actually perceived by his friends as a wonderful, amazing man, but one you have to look after.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/sherlock-season-2-steven-moffat_n_1472139.html

The first set of comments relate to Holmes in the Canon; the second to BBCSherlock, but I think the line “He’s actually a terribly emotional man and he’s a desperate show-off” really applies to Holmes in the Canon. He is shy yet loves to have his dramatic moments or surprise people with his disguises. He is touched by being appreciated. I’m not going into the long discussion of whether Moffat and Gatiss’s Sherlock delivers this, but Moffat’s statements here are very true to the character in the Canon, and I love that it’s a complete rebuttal of the concept that Holmes is some kind of heartless machine.

THE WOMAN IN LONDON: THE MOST WINNING WOMAN?

So far, theories about the woman in London have mostly run to:

1. Irene Adler and it was a romance.

2. Irene Adler and she beat him.

3. Moriarty.

4. Maud Bellamy (I threw that one in, and, although it would be cool, I doubt it).

But there is one I really want it to be, with appropriate changes in the modern era. But let us pause for a moment before we get to that and examine some other things. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson both try to present Holmes as somewhat lacking in emotion in the stories, but if you watch Holmes, what he does, how he behaves and reacts, you will see that this isn’t true. He gets angry, his feelings are hurt, he cares about people. He is quite emotional and fights to keep that under the thumb of logic.

In The Sign of Four, Watson tells Holmes, “You really are an automaton–a calculating machine … There is something positively inhuman about you at times.”

He smiled gently.

“It is of the first importance,” he said, “not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.”

“[T]he most winning woman” Holmes “ever knew” (at the point of this story, that is, which is important to remember in reference to some other stories as well) poisoned three little children for the insurance money.

And Holmes, from the sound of it, wasn’t able to save them, was he?

5. The most winning woman Holmes ever knew.