\u201cThe Hound of the Baskervilles,\u201d<\/a> a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle originally published in 1902, it is not the serious whodunnit mystery you might be expecting.<\/p>\nWhat audiences will be seeing is a side-splitting funny makeover adapted by Olivier Award nominees Steven Canny and John Nicholson. It was first performed by Peepolykus at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds in 2007, before transferring to the West End of London.<\/p>\n
The plot involves legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his trusty companion Dr. Watson investigating the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, who is believed to have been killed by a supernatural hound. The comedy features three actors who play multiple roles, with plenty of physical comedy, slapstick and quick costume changes, while bringing the eerie plot to life in a high-energy romp that both spoofs and celebrates the iconic detective story.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the play is not a true representation of the film or book, but a spoof, the cast is still trying to solve a mystery and all the elements of \u2018The Hound of the Baskervilles\u2019 are present,\u201d said Gina Kaufmann, who is directing the play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt certainly is a challenge to direct just three actors who between them play about 17 different characters. I think audiences will be laughing their heads off seeing these three people embody these different characters and do everything live on stage from quick changes to moving props. It is a joy working with them. They get the style so clearly and are well prepared for opening night,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Kaufmann \u2014 who is a professor of theater at UMass Amherst \u2014 previously directed \u201cThe Odd Couple\u201d and the musical \u201cThe Last Five Years\u201d for Majestic Theater.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy to be back. Sue Dziura (producing director at The Majestic), who I directed in a play for New Century Theater \u2014 we have kept in touch and remain good friends \u2014 asked me to direct \u2018The Hound of the Baskervilles.\u2019 This play is all about comedic timing, something I really love to work with as a director. And it has Monty Python aspects to it as a spoof on noir detective stories,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The cast includes Jack Grigoli as Sir Henry and others, Jay Sefton as Watson and more, and Abuzar Farrukh in multiple roles.<\/p>\n
Similar to Dziura, Grigoli believes audiences will find many aspects of the play enjoyable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the audience will enjoy the attempt we are making to tell the story as well as the chemistry between the three of us. I see it as being different every night for us and the audience. Obviously, we are well rehearsed, but whatever happens on stage along the way, we will just go with it. A lot of clever lighting and sound design will add the eeriness to the play, but the real story is pretty chilling, and we are still attempting to carry that feeling with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A stage and voice over actor from Wilbraham who has performed locally including at The Majestic as well as in California, Grigoli noted spoofs are nothing new to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile in California, I was one of three actors in a similar style comedy called \u2018The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged),\u2019 where we comically condensed all of Shakespeare\u2019s 37 works in just 90 minutes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Hound of the Baskervilles\u201d runs through Feb. 16, followed on Feb. 26 by Ken Ludwig\u2019s \u201cDear Jack, Dear Louise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tickets to the show range from $35 to $38 and can be purchased in person at the box office, by calling 413-747-7797, or by going online to majestictheater.com<\/a>. Box office hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.masslive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SPRINGFIELD \u2014 Spoiler alert ahead \u2014 but it isn\u2019t about how the play ends. If you plan on purchasing tickets to The Majestic\u2019s first play of the new year, \u201cThe Hound of the Baskervilles,\u201d a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle originally published in 1902, it is not the serious whodunnit mystery you might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2225741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2225742,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225741\/revisions\/2225742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2225741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2225741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}