10A • August 10, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
‘BASKERVILLE’
a melodramatic take on Sherlock Holmes
Coaster Theatre actors (from left) David Sweeney, Slab
Slabinski, Frank Jagodnik in ‘Baskerville: A Sherlock
Holmes Mystery.’
From left: Slab Slabinski, David Sweeney, Frank Jagodnik
and Emily Dante star in ‘Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes
Mystery’ at the Coaster Theatre.
GEORGE VETTER PHOTOS/CANNON-BEACH.NET
Sherlock Holmes (Frank Jagodnik), right, and his trusty assistant, Doctor Watson (David Sweeney).
By Katherine Lacaze
For Cannon Beach Gazette
S
ir Arthur Conan
Doyle’s
beloved
crime-solving
duo,
Sherlock Holmes and
Doctor Watson, will
get a melodramatic makeover
at the Coaster Theatre Play-
house this summer in “Bask-
erville: A Sherlock Holmes
Mystery,” running through Sat-
urday, Sept. 1.
“The whole play itself is a
valentine to Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle’s text, but also to theater
itself, because there are a lot
of theatrical devices audiences
normally don’t see in modern
theater,” said Director Jenni
Tronier, who loves “a good mur-
der-mystery” and directed Ag-
atha Christie’s “Murder on the
Nile” in 2015. “There is a lot of
suspension of disbelief required
on the part of the audience.”
In writing the script, Amer-
ican playwright Ken Ludwig
closely followed Doyle’s orig-
inal work, “The Hound of the
Baskervilles.” What is needed
to transform this literary clas-
sic — brimming with action,
adventure and dozens of in-
teresting characters — into a
stage production are theatrical,
sometimes farcical devices: ab-
surd props, breaking the fourth
wall, quick changes into new
costumes both on and offstage,
and plenty of sound and light
cues.
The show’s small cast of
Coaster Theatre veterans in-
cludes Frank Jagodnik as Sher-
lock Holmes, David Swee-
ney as Doctor Watson, Slab
Slabinski as Actor One, Ryan
Hull as Actor Two and Emily
Dante as Actress One.
Under the guidance of
Tronier, they have been given
vastly different tasks: Jagod-
nik and Sweeney must breathe
new life and distinction into a
famous duo already portrayed
a dozen times over, while
Slabinski, Hull and Dante must
keep the audience up to speed
on who’s who while coming
on and offstage depicting a re-
volving lineup of more than 35
supporting characters.
The iconic duo
To reincarnate Sherlock
Holmes — who holds a Guin-
ness World Records title for
“Most Portrayed Literary Hu-
man Character in Film & TV”
— Jagodnik studied the man-
nerisms and character choices
made by well-known actors
who depicted the iconic sleuth,
but he is also relying on his own
interpretation and instincts.
“You have to go with what
you have,” he said. “It’s you
doing it, it’s your voice, it’s
your body. You can’t be Jer-
emy Brett, even though you
want to be. You can’t be Basil
Rathbone or Benedict Cumber-
batch.”
For Watson, Sweeney is
focused on two watchwords:
chronicler and observer.
“Much of what I try to do
is respond to what’s going on
around me, more reactive than
proactive,” he said.
In “Baskerville,” Watson
and Sherlock already have an
established friendship and pro-
fessional partnership, which is
the heart of the show.
“Their relationship is the
key to everything they do,”
Tronier said. “They’re yin and
yang.”
On his face, Sherlock is not
a particularly endearing char-
acter — he’s addicted to drugs
and smoking, can be volatile
and has sociopathic tendencies.
Watson, however, “sees the
humanity in him, he sees the
brilliance, the mind,” Tronier
said. Sherlock’s “wicked hab-
its,” which are referred to in
the play, help bring him down
a notch.
“Because Sherlock is
flawed, he’s more relatable,”
she said. “If he was just this
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brilliant detective who was a
nice guy, I don’t think people
would like him as much, be-
cause there wouldn’t be a relat-
able aspect to him.”
Jagodnik and Sweeney em-
phasize the importance of artful-
ly portraying the co-dependence
and loyalty between the detec-
tive and his sidekick, whose
relationship has served as a tem-
plate for other buddy cop duos
for more than a century.
Like a musical
For the other three actors,
the focus is breadth rather than
depth. During the start of the
rehearsal process, they indi-
vidually met with Tronier to
discuss each of their individual
characters and conceptualize
how that person would talk and
move, or what idiosyncrasies
could define them.
“I encouraged them to ex-
plore physically, as well as vo-
cally,” Tronier said.
While the costumes Judith
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Light has created for each
character will help evoke and
distinguish them, the onus is on
the actors to endow each one
with a different voice or accent,
physical characteristic or other
mannerisms.
“There are a couple scenes
where each of us are playing
two different characters in the
same scene and even speaking
two lines back-to-back as dif-
ferent characters,” Slabinski
said.
Some characters make a
single appearance in a short
scene; others weave their pres-
ence throughout the show’s
approximately 30 scenes. From
an audience perspective, Dante
said, “you really have no idea
who’s going to pop out from
behind the curtain.”
Performances begin at 7:30
p.m. Visit coastertheatre.com
for a full show and event calen-
dar, or call the Coaster Theatre
box office at 503-436-1242 for
tickets.
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