When Ryan McWayne watched Martha Benson's audition, he knew he’d found his Sherlock Holmes. 

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“Martha brought a wonderful combination of intelligence, charm, wit, and more,” he said. “Add the fact that she is a phenomenal actress, and I knew she’d be perfect. Which she is.” 

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Even on paper, Benson seems eminently qualified. The Adelphi University graduate boasts impressive credentials, with numerous Adelphi, Inwood Shakespeare Festival, and Oregon Contemporary Theatre credits to her name. She’s appeared on New York stages (“The Tempest”; “Romeo and Juliet,” in which she essayed Romeo in her own production; and “Much Ado About Nothing,” among others). In addition, she explored her craft in courses at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the British American Dramatic Academy. Benson also speaks French and is well-versed in European classic novels. Her resume may indeed rival or surpass even Holmes’. 

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The legendary detective matches considerable and potentially deadly wits with the formidable Professor Moriarty — an adversary Holmes could never quite shake, even after a century-plus — in this Majesticpiece Theatre presentation, which opens live (i.e., no edited recordings for multiple playbacks) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20.  For more information, visit https://bit.ly/2OqZtKu.

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“When audition information was sent out, I indicated I was open to any gender, any race, any ethnicity, any age, for all roles [the audition form bears this out],” McWayne said. “I’m searching for the best person for each role.” 

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A far cry from the original stage Holmes, scripted with one specific person in mind. English author/physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had introduced the character in 1887’s A Study in Scarlet and built him into one of mystery literature’s most enduring archetypes over four novels and 56 short stories. He became so beloved that naturally he ventured onstage, through the personage of playwright/performer William Gillette in the late 19th century. Gillette developed his own four-act drama, Sherlock Holmes, which premiered in 1899 New York with himself, of course, in the title role. His is the Holmes we recognize most: deerstalker cap, long, curved pipe. 

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This is decidely not that Sherlock Holmes. Majestic Theatre program assistant Rachel Kohler has adapted the Gillette play for digital footlights, trimming it to under two hours and changing the script where necessary. McWayne is protectively mum on further alterations. “As to how our Sherlock Holmes is different — well, tune into the show and find out,” he said. 

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Kohler, however, was somewhat more willing to elaborate. 

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“Adapting old plays is one of my most beloved hobbies,” she said, “so I was glad to be asked to adapt this one. ... [I]t's a really rewarding challenge cutting them down, tweaking things here and there, and finding new ways to narrate action. The narration is particularly fun in Sherlock — while we do have [Dr. John H.] Watson introducing scenes (a natural choice, given the narrative style of the books), internal action is narrated through silent film-style expository intertitle cards. It fits nicely with the generally melodramatic flavor of the text.” 

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Kohler also enjoyed tweaking Gillette’s legendary creation — touching the seemingly untouchable, nevertheless an old theater tradition — and reinterpreting it through a contemporary lens, keeping its initial form intact while adding further depth. 

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“I have always been fascinated by, admiring of, and slightly mortified by the old actor-managers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, as the egos involved were clearly enormous,” she said, “but the art itself was very exciting. I generally do Shakespeare/early modern theatre adaptations, and so many of my encounters with these long-vanished giants of the theatrical world have been through their often extremely liberal Shakespeare adaptations, in which they've cheerfully and unrepentantly rewritten large swaths of the plays. It's in some ways inspired me to do the same (although I don't like appearing in my own adaptation or directing work; it feels gauche). Gillette’s adaptation and the performance that went with it were so iconic that they did much to cement what we think of as Sherlock Holmes ... but it was not a play with which I was at all familiar until Ryan asked if there were any old Sherlock Holmes plays, and I went looking for one.” 

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McWayne had long been enamored of the storied detective. “Sherlock Holmes was a favorite character of my dad’s, and so he became a favorite of mine growing up,” he said. “When asked to direct, I went searching for a show to do and had a vague memory of a Holmes play. I was excited when I found it.” 

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Kohler was just as excited by the possibilities, especially in collaboration with a director receptive to upturning theatrical norms for a production’s benefit, to send it in exhilarating directions.

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“My favorite thing to do with old plays is to challenge audience expectations that have set by hundreds of years of performance precedent, and one of the easiest ways to do this is to play with gender spectrum in performance,” Kohler said. “The profession of acting has been a largely straight, white, cisgender male one for thousands of years in the Western world, so staking out more diverse and more queer spaces within the borders of popular art is enormously satisfying to me. While I didn't make any of the casting choices, I told Ryan I'd be happy to change pronouns and gendered language within the script based on casting and actor requests, and he loved the idea. 

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“The fact that he cast a nonmale Sherlock Holmes in an explicitly queer romance fills me with joy. Theater has been playing with gender as a construct since its genesis, and I love carrying that work forward into the 21st century. Martha does a fantastic job taking this role, a role burdened with 120 years of expectations and creating her own space within it. She's quintessentially Sherlock Holmes, and yet she's also something completely different, because a nonmale body in such a male space as this can't help but make a statement.” 

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That said, Holmes isn’t Holmes without a most worthy rival: the ruthless Professor Moriarty, the so-called “Napoleon of crime,” one of the few malevolent masterminds to have written a much-admired book of mathematics (The Dynamics of an Asteroid). Despite their antagonism, heroine and opponent mutually admire each other’s intelligence. Into this historic devil-flesh slips Andrew Laniohan (Majesticpiece Theatre’s Treasure Island, Umpqua Community College’s (proof)), who steers the professor with equal measures of fury and cunning. 

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“Andrew is a spectacular actor,” McWayne said. “Every role I’ve seen him take on he’s impressed me greatly. With Moriarty, he brings a wonderful mix of genius and madness to the role. Both shine in his eyes and his characterization.” 

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Rounding out the cast are Jason Caffarella as the detective’s faithful partner, Dr. Watson; Ariel Hicks as Alice Faulkner, Holmes’ love interest (a Gillette addition to the mythology; he’d famously asked Doyle's permission to create her, to which the author riposted, “You may marry or murder or do what you like with [Holmes].”); Carolyn Poutasse as Inspector Forman (another role originally written for a male); Andrew Freborg as James Larabee; Noise contributor Jennifer Moody in the dual role of Therese and Mrs. Smeedley; Ralph Turley as Sidney Prince; Brandon Urey as Alfred Bassick; Kristin Wirtz as Billy; Nancy Homan as Leary and Countess Von Stahlburg; Pat Purdue as “Lightfoot” McTague and John Parsons; and Karlissa Jones as Jim Craigin and Sir Edward Leighton; with Rose Taylor and Alex Asher as backup actors. 

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As has become standard for theatrical production, Sherlock Holmes was prepared as a Zoom affair, with stage manager Amanda Vander Hyde’s technical wizardry evoking Victorian England when necessary. Cast members provide their own costumes (“always impressive for what our actors have in their closets,” McWayne said). and shaped their own English — or, in Moody’s case, French — patois. 

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“I know some of our cast sought assistance from fellow thespians they know for accent work,” McWayne said. “However, most everyone brought accent talents they already had in their ‘actor bag.’ We did play around a little with accents and where we decided to have their characters from. However, in the end, having an accent was not necessary, just a fun bonus if our talent were able to do it.” 

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Nevertheless, this Sherlock Holmes appears destined to be an historic highlight of a pandemic-plagued season, changes and all. “I think people enjoy a mystery and love how Holmes is able to see every detail and outthink everyone in the room,” McWayne says of the character’s enduring appeal, which not even the coronavirus or our collective cynicism could ever hope to damage. The play promises an evening packed with, in the director’s words, “mystery, melodrama, humor, romance, and more!” (Spoken like a promoter born.) 

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According to Kohler, even the play’s original author might enjoy the magic of the Majestic’s theatrical update. 

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“I don't know if Gillette would approve,” she said, “but I think he'd admire the chutzpah.”