‘Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson - Apt. 2B’ Review Insights

Within Great Lakes Theater’s playbill for “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B,” playwright Kate Hamill tacks on a sentence underneath her byline which reads, “Cheerfully desecrating the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Desecrate” is an interesting choice of verbiage considering its rather harsh definition: “to violate the sanctity of” or “to treat disrespectfully, irreverently, or outrageously.” It might at first be assumed that this one-liner by Hamill is meant to be cheeky, a way to poke fun at purists who will find fault with her gender-bent adaptation of Conan Doyle’s work.

In hindsight, the playwright’s descriptor feels more like a disclaimer: the characters and mystery on Great Lakes Theater’s stage are not what you’ve come to expect from the famous stories.

As you will have surmised from the show’s title, Hamill’s play reimagines the world’s most famous detective and his doctor companion as women, then places them in the 21st century. Joan Watson has just moved from America to London, where desperation, fate and a scheming landlady have placed her in the same apartment as the manic yet brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is immediately intrigued by Watson, who is suffering from mysterious panic attacks, the cause of which Holmes is determined to sniff out. Together, Holmes and Watson traipse through London solving seemingly unrelated crimes, but there is a bigger game afoot.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are no strangers to adaptations; in fact, Holmes holds the record as the most portrayed human literary character in film and television history. The gender bending and modernization within Hamill’s “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B” are intriguing modifications. Where the show falters is in story and presentation.

Hamill’s script does not follow a conventional whodunit structure. In just over two hours, the sleuthing duo flits through multiple cases with a breakneck rapidity that ultimately renders the mysteries unsatisfying. Just as the metaphorical chess pieces of a case are being set up, Holmes bulldozes through them with deductions that are scripted to sound clever, but feel cheap for how incredibly effortlessly they are obtained–even for Sherlock Holmes. The fun of a mystery, after all, is in its solving.

Rather than solving mysteries, “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B” places an emphasis on character development and exploring the relationship between the eccentric Holmes and incredulous Watson through humor. This is a case that director Maggie Kettering never quite cracks.

The Sherlock Holmes character is typically portrayed as egotistic, aloof, cunning and moody, with brilliance and loyalty acting as redeeming, charming qualities. Jodi Dominick’s Sherlock Holmes is practically ricocheting off the walls of Jeff Herrmann’s exquisitely detailed, knickknack-laden set design (repurposed from last year’s “Noises Off” production). Her Sherlock is exhaustingly manic and often comes across as juvenile, and the script’s failure to provide satisfying deductive brilliance to buff out the character’s edges makes this Holmes hard to love.

Yadira Correa plays the defensive, wry Joan Watson, a failed doctor and divorcee who is seeking to find her next path in life after the pandemic derailed her plans. Correa’s Watson is full of contradictions. She is guarded but empathetic, smart yet easily duped, private one moment but an open book the next, skeptical but also easy to persuade. This Watson compliments Holmes, but the pairing fails to capture an especially charismatic buddy-comedy chemistry.

More intriguing are the portrayals of multiple characters by actors Rex Young and Emjoy Gavino. Young adopts the role of various men in the story, including a slimy senatorial candidate, Elliot Monk, and the often bumbling Inspector Lestrade. Gavino portrays the worn-out landlady, Mrs. Hudson, as well as the sultry, captivating criminal, Irene Adler, who is immaculately dressed by designer Yvonne Miranda.

Hamill’s show is categorized as a dark comedy. But the humor is, well, elementary. There’s a snake in a can accompanied by an Indiana Jones quote–you know the one. Dramatic lighting shifts and musical stings by designers Jason Fassi and Joshua Schmidt, respectively, attempt to punctuate physical gags, like when the characters are irrationally sprayed with squirt bottles of fake blood. There are repetitive shots at Watson being an American, as well as multiple “Sherlock is not a real name” jokes. It’s 2021, but somehow Holmes has never even come across the term “Google” or “blog,” which she pronounces goofily. There’s a tedious sequence with a dummy, the context of which is entirely inexplicable.

The show embraces quirkiness (e.g. Sherlock’s brain hat), but quirky doesn’t always equate to funny. Humor is subjective, but on opening night, the production failed to evoke a collective laugh-out-loud moment from the audience, let alone multiple moments of communal mirth.

Let’s face it: no one attends a Sherlock Holmes show with the hope that the characters and mysteries that have given the stories their lasting power are desecrated–even if it is claimed to be done in a “cheerful” manner. The case of “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B” is one that the detectives at Great Lakes Theater can’t quite crack.

“Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B” runs through May 10, 2026, at the Hanna Theatre, 2067 E 14th St, Cleveland. Visit greatlakestheater.org or call (216) 241-6000 for tickets, $24-107.

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