‘Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery’ presents classic tale in a new way

Christian Pedersen, left, and Brandon Jones co-star in “Baskerville” at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison, through Aug. 2.

Mel Brooks never did a spoof of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. But if he did, he might have come up with something akin to “Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery,” which The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is currently presenting, as its primary summertime offering, at Drew University in Madison.

I am not saying that this comedic take on the super-sleuth is as consistently funny as Brooks at his best. But its madcap irreverence is very much in the spirit of Brooks, and it even has some homages to “Young Frankenstein” (a “walk this way” gag, an accent that recalls Cloris Leachman’s Frau Blücher).

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Nicholas Wilder, left, and David Foubert in “Baskerville.”W

Ludwig’s play — which premiered with a production that ran at The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton and The Mead Center for American Theater in Washington, D.C., in 2015 — is built around a daring theatrical leap, with five actors playing about 40 characters. And that is with two actors devoted exclusively to the casually brilliant Holmes and his loyal but always one-step-behind sidekick, Dr. John Watson. The other three actors have to work feverishly — changing outfits, wigs, facial hair, accents and demeanors, and adding or subtracting props — to make it all work, and that in itself is a wonder to behold.

In this production, directed by STNJ’s artistic director Brian Crowe, Christian Pedersen makes for a youngish Holmes — often seen with a mischievous glint in his eyes — and Brandon Jones is a suitably stalwart Watson. (The play needs at least a little gravitas, and Watson is there to provide it.) David Foubert, Nicholas Wilder and Janiah-Camile François handle all the other roles, and with Foubert devoted largely to Henry Baskerville, the drawling goofball Texan heir to the British Baskerville family’s fortune, it’s really Wilder and François who have to do most of the heavy lifting. (Henry Baskerville was Canadian in Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1902 novel “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” but I guess Texans are more spoofable.)

Many of the minor characters are quite cartoonish, but that helps audience members keep them straight. Wilder carries a butterfly net and speaks in an affected tone when he is the effete naturalist Jack Stapleton, for instance, and drops to his knees and adopts a Cockney accent to play Milker, the street urchin who assists Holmes.

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Janiah-Camile François in “Baskerville.”

There is a strong Gothic flavor to “Baskerville,” and the show’s scenic designer (Dick Block) and lighting designer (Tony Galaska) help to create an appropriately spooky setting for a story that takes place mostly on a Devonshire moor and suggests the possibility of a supernaturally fearsome dog. And Holmes, of course, gets ample opportunity to show off his exceptional deductive chops. (For all the zaniness going on around him, Holmes himself pretty much sticks to business, and gets his mystery-solving stuff done.)

In the program, Crowe writes that this play is “equal parts mystery, farce, and theatrical magic show.” But to me, the mystery part (and the thriller part, for that matter) really took a back seat.

“Baskerville” is an energetic and wildly imaginative comedy, and that’s enough. You don’t go to “Young Frankenstein” expecting to be genuinely frightened, after all.

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey will present “Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery” at its F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre at Drew University in Madison, through Aug. 2. Visit shakespearenj.org.

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