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Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure
Book by adapted by Steven Dietz, based on the original 1899 play by William Gillette and Arthur Conan Doyle
69 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2007
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About the author
Steven Dietz
44 books18 followersSteven Dietz is an American playwright whose work is largely performed regionally, i.e. outside of New York City. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Dietz graduated in 1980 with a Theater degree from the University of Northern Colorado. He is the recipient of the PEN U.S.A. Award in Drama (for Lonely Planet); the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award (Fiction and Still Life With Iris); and the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Award (The Rememberer). Halcyon Days is one of his other successful plays. Many of his plays are very political. He lives in Seattle.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 2, 2010
I am currently in this play. I play a "baddie", which I'm very excited about. I play Marie/Madge. I get to have three accents, a knife, and a revolver. All very exciting. Anyway...the play. I think it is a very good adaptation. It's a conglomeration of Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Final Solution". It is more true to the stories than the movie was (even though, I will say, I liked the leaps the movie took and Jude Law is so pretty). It's fast-paced and I think it will be a fun play to hear an audiences' "ooohs" and screams...
October 25, 2022
I read this in preparation for a post-performance discussion of the play this weekend. It's extremely well done, allows the reader to 'see' the entire play in their imagination, and reinforces my long-standing belief that Holmes' arrogance/bravado was simply his way of cutting to the chase. two sentences in the author's note will stick with me for a long time, providing many a chuckle: "He (Holmes) is anxious, moody, vain, opinionated, caustic, and empirical. He could wipe the floor with Donald Trump." Note that this was penned in 2006, well before many caught on to said blowhard.
April 26, 2014
This show is good fun, but it felt like fan fiction. Some things that happened just didn't quite seem true to the characters.
My biggest grievance was Sherlock's schoolboy love towards Irene. I believe their romance should never go further than a deep regard and respect - it should be something that almost happens but never does, and the chemistry should be powerful and present but never voiced (see "A Scandal in Bohemia" - "It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind...") But here, they stressed and stressed the romance. At one point, I was saying to myself, "If they kiss, I am going to puke." And of course they had to kiss. So much fiction wants to tell you that romance is the answer to everything, and I have always enjoyed that Sherlock Holmes is not that way at all. But the author here totally gave in, and it felt a gimmick to make it more of a crowd pleaser.
Even if we set that aside and Sherlock Holmes is going to be in love, I don't want to see him be awkward about it. He should never be awkward; he should always be dashing, put-together, and on top of his game. And frankly, it might have been the performance I saw, but I didn't even like Irene very much. I don't know what to say other than she was totally full of herself and kind of a hussy. I thought she was supposed to be SMART! What was with her
The mystery and adventure plotting also should've been handled better. A lot of it was pretty predictable (I could tell when people were faking things) while other plot points were a little confusing. There were parts of the action that didn't even make sense. Why does Sherlock pull out the photograph in plain view of the bad guys? And if you are in a room with a bad guy and are holding a gun, why would you EVER , EVER leave your gun on the table?!
Also, WHY WHY WHY did we have to have Sherlock injecting himself with cocaine in the first five minutes of the play? I KNOW he takes cocaine in the stories (in only two of them I think). Fine! But it wasn't in the original play that Dietz was adapting from, and I have no idea why he felt the need to add it in. It serves no purpose in the story. At least Watson berates him for it.
Despite my complaints, I did very much enjoy the play over all. It keeps the audience guessing to an extent and is good family fun (unless the performers play up the cocaine or "bedroom scene" too much). It is one of those plays that everyone gets excited about performing and seeing.
I did like the ending, too. I didn't quite see that coming.
My biggest grievance was Sherlock's schoolboy love towards Irene. I believe their romance should never go further than a deep regard and respect - it should be something that almost happens but never does, and the chemistry should be powerful and present but never voiced (see "A Scandal in Bohemia" - "It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind...") But here, they stressed and stressed the romance. At one point, I was saying to myself, "If they kiss, I am going to puke." And of course they had to kiss. So much fiction wants to tell you that romance is the answer to everything, and I have always enjoyed that Sherlock Holmes is not that way at all. But the author here totally gave in, and it felt a gimmick to make it more of a crowd pleaser.
Even if we set that aside and Sherlock Holmes is going to be in love, I don't want to see him be awkward about it. He should never be awkward; he should always be dashing, put-together, and on top of his game. And frankly, it might have been the performance I saw, but I didn't even like Irene very much. I don't know what to say other than she was totally full of herself and kind of a hussy. I thought she was supposed to be SMART! What was with her
The mystery and adventure plotting also should've been handled better. A lot of it was pretty predictable (I could tell when people were faking things) while other plot points were a little confusing. There were parts of the action that didn't even make sense. Why does Sherlock pull out the photograph in plain view of the bad guys? And if you are in a room with a bad guy and are holding a gun, why would you EVER , EVER leave your gun on the table?!
Also, WHY WHY WHY did we have to have Sherlock injecting himself with cocaine in the first five minutes of the play? I KNOW he takes cocaine in the stories (in only two of them I think). Fine! But it wasn't in the original play that Dietz was adapting from, and I have no idea why he felt the need to add it in. It serves no purpose in the story. At least Watson berates him for it.
Despite my complaints, I did very much enjoy the play over all. It keeps the audience guessing to an extent and is good family fun (unless the performers play up the cocaine or "bedroom scene" too much). It is one of those plays that everyone gets excited about performing and seeing.
I did like the ending, too. I didn't quite see that coming.
October 25, 2011
A nice combination of a couple of Sherlock Holmes adventures in theater format.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews