On October 2, the Performing Arts Center hosted the Aquilo Theatre Company production of “Sherlock Holmes.” The production included three of the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Copper Breeches,” “The Adventure of the Yellow Face,” and “A Scandal in Bohemia.” I was intrigued when the first act began and a woman entered on stage beautifully playing the violin. I knew that this was not going to be an average story of Sherlock Holmes.

The play was infused with much more humour than I had expected. Oftentimes the character of Dr. Watson was the comic relief of the play. His flurrying fits of typing made the crowd roar in laughter. At another point, Watson’s character played a horse for an imagined carriage ride. Immediately after, two of the characters were set to be married. The one told Watson to “[s]top horsing around and play the vicar.” This also got a rather large reaction from the audience.

The constantly changing way that the scene was set was also well done. The play used images projected onto a screen to act as a scene for the outside environments, ranging from cityscapes to individual rooms within houses to Holmes’s own apartment. This multi-media approach was able to create interesting effects that would not otherwise have been possible, such as in Act 2 when Holmes unmasked the “Yellow Face.”

Overall, the play was superbly well done. The actors were noticeably professional. Even when faced with a couple of minor setbacks, they still played wonderfully and did not once leave their characters. This play shattered my expectations and left me with a new look at Sherlock Holmes and the versatility of using the stage as a medium of portraying literature.