Holmes boys: Michael Santo takes on an iconic role with trusty sidekick Richard Farrell

Wife-and-husband playwriting team Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner, whose successful comedy Dogpark played at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's Stackner Cabaret in 2008, have been invited back this year for Holmes And Watson: A Musical Mystery (running through Jan. 3). The two-man show finds Sherlock Holmes facing another devilish plot from the fiendish Professor Moriarty that traps the iconic duo in a sealed room slowly filling with poison gas. The actors originating the roles, Michael Santo and Richard Farrell, have collaborated with the playwrights for decades, and their long-time friendship is sure to add another layer to the production. Santo and Farrell talked about stepping into these iconic roles with The A.V. Club.

The A.V. Club: Who was the best Sherlock Holmes?

Michael Santo: Of course I'm impressed with Jeremy Brett, and Basil Rathbone—in the earlier ones anyway. There are so many Holmeses who are just snoozers; they drop an English accent and that's it. Peter Cushing's Holmes is really good. I was thinking more of a Brett-ish kind of thing because there's a lot of nervous movement in the play, plus a lot of jokes and really off-the-wall sort of things, it's easier to have a personality that can turn on a dime.

AVC: How do you play the most brilliant mind in the world?

MS: Well, he's totally sure of his own brilliance. He enjoys people thinking his solution is brilliant, when it's there for all to see. But occasionally, in our show, he's totally baffled.

AVC: Nigel Bruce created a bumbling, comic Watson. Later actors went back to the source material and portrayed him as an intelligent man. How do you play him?

Richard Farrell: Well, it is a comedy, so I try to incorporate some of the Nigel Bruce-ian qualities, but also some of the more heroic and definitely stiff-upper-lip qualities, which plays really well against the mercurial quality of Holmes. In reading the stories I was struck by how straight and strong he is. Very patriotic, very Queen and Country, which I'm discovering is more and more important in out show. Also, Watson is the lens through which the audience sees the mystery.

AVC: How do you characterize Holmes and Watson's relationship?  

MS: I wouldn't say love and hate, I'd say love and annoyance. I think Holmes genuinely has as much affection as he has in his body; he really likes Watson, perhaps loves him in his own way. Sometimes he just really irritates him. [Laughs.] Basically it's like husband and wife; they love each other, but really get in the way sometimes.

RF: That's what interesting about this piece, when you only have two actors. Obviously we're solving this mystery, but there is this relationship there in the room that happens from moment to moment. One of the most enjoyable elements is working with Michael. Since we've known each other such a long time, a lot of the sort of gauze and walls that you encounter when you're working with someone for the first time is not there. We know each other so well we can say things to each other in rehearsal that you can never say to another person in rehearsal if you didn't know them so well. We've had some moments where we started yelling at each other. [Laughs.] Some of that finds its way into the show. It adds to that peppery quality Michael was talking about in terms of their relationship.