"Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure"

Through September 30

Geva Theatre Center

75 Woodbury Blvd.

$17-$54 | 232-4382 | gevatheatrecenter.org

He's a cocaine-addled narcissist, neither warm nor fuzzy nor particularly funny, and he's often a jerk to his best (and only) friend. So why, after more than a century of existence, does Sherlock Holmes remain one of the most beloved figures in all of literature? Certainly his unbendable sense of justice, when coupled with that sly, prodigious logic, renders him akin to a Victorian-era superhero. But Holmes has flaws and demons that we embrace because they make him beautifully human. Even his seemingly astonishing powers of deduction are merely perceptive study followed by a plausible conclusion: "You see, Watson, but you do not observe."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed creation treads the boards in the inaugural production of Geva's 35th season, "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure." The play is based on an 1899 piece co-authored by Doyle and actor William Gillette, whose many stage appearances as "the Bloodhound of Baker Street" are the reason a curved pipe and the word "elementary" spring to mind at the mention of Holmes. "The Final Adventure" is a mishmash of Holmes' first short story ("A Scandal in Bohemia") and that which was meant to be his last ("The Final Problem"), but it's the thematic introduction of the one concept foreign to Holmes - by the two gentlemen who should have known better - that causes this account to ultimately ring false, despite entertaining and eye-catching efforts by both cast and crew.

Narration by Nick Berg Barnes' Dr. Watson shatters the fourth wall and opens "The Final Adventure" by conveying the untimely demise of Sherlock Holmes with the first line of "The Final Problem" ("It is with a heavy heart..."). But before we relive the deadly mano a mano at Reichenbach Falls between Holmes and his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, Watson flashes us back to the London events that brought them to Switzerland: a delicate undertaking for the betrothed King of Bohemia, whose past indiscretion with an opera singer named Irene Adler has resulted in a compromising photograph that could thwart his chance at nuptial bliss.

Mystery fans are aware of Adler's significance as one of the few adversaries to actually outwit the great detective. "To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman," Watson reported, Holmes' esteem for Adler a result of her shrewd mind coupled with her good looks. Putting aside that "The Final Problem" is years removed from "A Scandal in Bohemia" anyway, the commingling that is "The Final Adventure" reimagines Adler as a romantic interest for Holmes as she third-wheels to the continent with Holmes and Watson for the Alpine showdown with Moriarty. The trouble with the notion of Holmes in love is... well, Holmes thought girls were yucky. As Watson puts it in "A Scandal in Bohemia": "All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind." So when the alternately clever and clunky script by Doyle and Gillette (by way of playwright Steven Dietz) gives him a conflicting opinion, he frankly ceases to be our Holmes.

A casual observer (read: not a Holmes freak) of "The Final Adventure," however, should find plenty to enjoy in Geva's staging of it. Sherlock Holmes is one of the juiciest characters around - arrogant, grumpy, drug-dependent, sarcastic, brilliant - and Christian Kohn, though perhaps a bit young, follows in the bar-setting footsteps of Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett with a worthy performance that, again, only seems untrue when Holmes is called upon to tentatively bare his soul. As the unfailingly patient Dr. Watson, Barnes does a commendable job of representing us, his reactions being our reactions, and Timothy Crowe properly channels the menacing Moriarty, with slow, deliberate movements leaving a trail of proverbial slime across the stage.

Visually, "The Final Adventure" is lovely in its austerity, muted brick, iron, and wood serving as both the backdrop for the cozy study at 221B Baker Street and, behind a massive, intricate screen of ducts, the industrial gloominess of the gas works where Holmes and Moriarty face off over Adler. And anyone wondering how Geva could possibly replicate a perilous waterfall on their stage will appreciate the delightfully inventive resourcefulness of the production and sound design teams.

Incidentally, Holmes was supposed to have sacrificed his life at Reichenbach Falls in the December 1893 issue of Strand Magazine to rid the world of Moriarty, but public uproar over Holmes' death convinced Doyle to plausibly resurrect him, once again illustrating the timeless need for a decent loophole.