'Baskerville' at McCarter Theatre

While the Canny-Nicholson script plays as farce — as witnessed by the Curio Theatre Company's zany 2013 production — Ludwig's is more faithful to the novel's tone, though it still generates humor through theatrical flourishes, not by poking fun. "My hope," writes Ludwig (a Haverford College grad and author of the hit farces Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo) in a program note, "is that Baskerville is about the theater as much as it is about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson."

Daniel Ostling's apparently bare stage (framed by lighting designer Philip S. Rosenberg's nakedly visible lighting scaffolds like some steampunk wet dream) is full of fun surprises as chairs rise from trapdoors or roll in from the wings, set pieces fly in from above, and props are tossed from offstage. The opening scene shows off the lighting and Joshua Horvath and Ray Nardelli's sound design with a spectacular thunderstorm.

Lucas Hall narrates as a young, droll Dr. Watson, introducing Gregory Woodell's Holmes, a spry version of the oft-portrayed character who's more Robert Downey Jr.'s man of action than Benedict Cumberbatch's confabulation of quirks, but clearly his own creation.

The story zooms, creating humorous challenges for Stanley Bahorek, Michael Glenn, and Jane Pfitsch, who together play all the tale's other characters with the inspired support of costume designer Jess Goldstein's quick-change magic and Leah J. Loukas's many wigs. Director Amanda Dehnert includes several fun "oops" moments when actors playing one character rush off to change because another they play is about to arrive. They're even characters in flashback: As the murder victim's lawyer tells Holmes and Watson about the hound's legend, the other two pantomime the history behind them.

Low-tech innovations

In both script and production, not a moment is wasted — the detective story's details emerge clearly while we're riding a high of low-tech theatrical innovations. When characters take a walk and see flowers, they fall from above and land in a neat patch. When a prop is needed, a hatch opens in the floor and an arm reaches out to supply it. When a character requires his hat, it comes soaring from the wings. A hotel desk clerk wears his desk. It's all great fun, and it keeps the story rolling.

The actors often wink at the audience about all this frenetic cleverness, but the production never tilts too far into farce: This is still a detective mystery with requisite twists and surprises, including a shocking apparent death at the Act I curtain.

Holmes purists may find reasons to quibble, but Baskerville is a delightfully theatrical two hours in the tradition of other recent small-cast literary adaptations like The 39 Steps and Around the World in 80 Days.

For Dan Rottenberg's review of the December, 2015 production at the Philadelphia Theatre Company, click here; for Gary L. Day’s review of that production, click here.

For Naomi Orwin's review of the Lantern Hound of the Baskervilles, click here.