Get to Know East Lynne Theater's Watson and Holmes

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" A quote from the one and only Sherlock Holmes, by way of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Sign of the Four."

Now, as improbable as it may seem, the truth is - the ever popular Sherlock Holmes died. And then, ten years later he came back to life. Imagine just how frustrated his devoted fans were at the time! In honor of this shocking story, East Lynn Theater in Cape May, will be reviving the two stories that tell the tale of Holmes’ demise and subsequent revival.

Written and directed by Mark Lang, this new adaptation, of Doyle’s “The Final Problem” and “The Adventure of the Empty House, the books in which we learn of the aforementioned death and resurrection of a beloved detective, will be presented radio-style on East Lynne’s stage, at the historic Cape May Presbyterian Church.

Jersey Arts speaks with Watson and Holmes themselves, Mark Lang and Joseph Travers respectively. Listen to learn more about the new show, “The Death of Sherlock Holmes”, Cape May, and some fun Sherlock Holmes trivia.

Thanks for listening!

• Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player.

The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Feature Stories on Discover Jersey Arts (jerseyarts.com), where articles and videos also cover New Jersey’s vibrant arts and entertainment scene.

Discover Jersey Arts is presented by ArtPride New Jersey. The program was co-founded by, and is currently supported by funds from, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Additional support for JerseyArts.com content is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

• Subscribe to the Discover Jersey Arts' weekly e-newsletter to have stories delivered to your inbox.
• Follow and contact us @jerseyarts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Chapters

• 0:03 Reviving Sherlock Holmes
• 12:35 Theater, Sherlock Holmes, and Artistic Journeys
• 23:36 Sherlock Holmes Radio Show Promotion

Transcript

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 0:03

This is Gina Marie Rodriguez and you're listening to the Jersey Arts Podcast. How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. That's a quote from Sherlock Holmes, by way of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the Sign of the Four. If you'll forgive me, it feels only right to read Sherlock with an English accent. You know Now, as improbable as it may seem, the truth is the ever-popular Sherlock Holmes died. The main character, he was it. That guy died and then, ten years later, he came back to life. Imagine just how frustrated his devoted fans were at the time.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 0:47

Well, in honor of this shocking story, East Lynne Theatre in Cape May will be reviving the two stories that tell the tale of Holmes' demise and subsequent revival, written by Mark Lang. This new adaptation of Doyle's The Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House the books in which we learn of the aforementioned death and resurrection of a beloved detective will be presented radio-style on East Lynne's stage at the historic Cape May Presbyterian Church. Today I spoke with Watson and Holmes themselves, Mark Lang and Joseph Travers. Check out our conversation to learn more about the new show, the Death of Sherlock Holmes, Cate May and some fun Sherlock Holmes trivia. Well, hello, gentlemen, it is so nice to have you here today. Thank you so much for being with me.

Mark Edward Lang: 1:34

Thank you for having us. Thank you for your interview.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 1:37

Absolutely my pleasure, if you don't mind, just introducing yourselves and your role in this show to our audience.

Mark Edward Lang: 1:43

My name is Mark Edward Lang and I have basically put much of this together. I'm the playwright, I did the adaptation, I'm also directing and performing.

Joseph Travers: 1:54

And I am Joseph Travers, and I'll be playing the role of Sherlock Holmes.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 1:58

Yeah.

Joseph Travers: 1:59

Very exciting.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 2:02

I don't want to say I'm like a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, because that would be a lie, but I remember reading Sherlock Holmes when I was younger and thinking, oh, this is an author I actually don't hate. I should start that by saying I didn't like reading as a kid, so this was a big deal for me to find a book that I actually liked, and if I can recall it was I'm going to butcher the title it was Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Baskerville Hounds.

Mark Edward Lang: 2:30

Hound of the Baskervilles.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 2:31

Yeah, thank you for correcting me.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 2:34

Yeah, that was a good one. I'd love to hear a little bit about your experience, both of you, with Sherlock Holmes. When did you discover him, when did you fall in love with him, become a fan, et cetera, et cetera.

Mark Edward Lang: 2:49

Well, it's interesting because, you know, talk about being a teenager. It's. Basically I was given the complete works, which I still have, and it's immense. I mean, because there were you know four novels, 56 stories. I looked at it. There were you know four novels, 56 stories. I looked at it. It's 1100 pages.

Mark Edward Lang: 3:07

So for you know, a teenager to kind of go, you know, I don't know if I'm going to make it through all that, but uh, so it's sort of been like a comeback to thing. I mean, I think everybody knows the character and and actually, as of last year, everything is is now public domain. So you're going to see more and more adaptations and changes and different versions of it, though in this case I wanted to be very faithful to the original. I thought let's hear Conan Doyle's words as much as possible and I will kind of massage them as needed and put it into this live radio format and have fun with it, which is really what the actors are doing. And when the actors have fun, the audience has fun, and that's definitely why we're all here.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 3:52

I didn't know that he just entered the public domain. That's exciting.

Joseph Travers: 3:55

Neither did I actually. That's great.

Mark Edward Lang: 3:58

It's because he wrote over the course of 40 years. It's taken time, but I think just last year. The last of the stories are now open to the public's interpretation, because about two years ago, I've been working with East Lynn Theater for years and Cate May is what we're talking about and they've been doing these Sherlock Holmes radio-style readings for many, many years. And there were times when they would repeat something they had produced before and I said, well, you know, I can take a shot at this. So I got the okay and went to the oeuvre and said, okay, now where do I start? There's 1100 pages here. So basically I thought, well, where's the drama?

Mark Edward Lang: 4:39

And there was a point where Conan Doyle was tired of writing it, as successful as it was from the very beginning, both here and in the UK.

Mark Edward Lang: 4:49

So I want to kill off this character. He'd been talking about it for a while and eventually said okay, I'm going to kill off this character, I'm going to call this story the final problem and he's going to die, and then I'll be done. And of course, there's more that happened after that and One Piece was not long enough for a full evening. So I said, okay, let's pair it with the Return Of which is the story he wrote years later, the Adventure of the Empty House, where, out of nowhere, Watson is sort of looking into this crime and all of a sudden he shows up out of nowhere but his friend Holmes, who he thought been dead for years. So there's lots of drama in there and actually surprising amount of there. You know he wasn't there for the actual uh encounter with Moriarty but, um, you know he heard firsthand that that they had fallen and uh, so, um, so it was a really good place to start. It takes a while to put something like this together, but, uh, it was definitely worth the effort.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 6:02

Before I ask Joseph what your experience with Sherlock Holmes is. Mark, how long did this process take you to adapt?

Mark Edward Lang: 6:12

I mean I've written a number of plays over the years, kind of on and off, since really high school, college, here and there. But there tends to be kind of a stop start, you know, you stop working on it for a while, then you take some time while you come back to it have another look at it. See, you know how's it kind of finish the first part first, see how that played and how it timed out. So it probably took about a year, you know, maybe a little less, from start to finish, and then when you're in rehearsal then you can make some tweaks. And then in terms of radio, you need to have sound effects and all that needs to be worked into the script as well. So you know there are a lot of layers to it in the process.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 6:56

Wow, honestly, a year is less time than I thought you were going to say. I think a year is pretty good, well.

Mark Edward Lang: 7:02

I wrote a play for my wife and I. You know, I decided I was going to write a play for the two of us, a two-hander, about the famous acting couple Lunt and Fontaine, who people have heard of because there's a Broadway theater named after them. But people don't know almost anything about them because they did all their work on the stage. They had one film in their prime in 1931. And so that project took seven years of on and off before we finally finished it, got it produced and so on. So you know, these things can take a much longer time.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 7:34

Absolutely Wow, seven years. And I mean not that I want to pivot, I just remember hearing that Hamilton had taken Lin-Manuel nine years, or something like that. So those were the numbers I was thinking.

Mark Edward Lang: 7:46

Oh, yeah, yeah, and ideally it's something that you workshop and in our case we need to get a good director on board to have another eye on it, another ear on it. And the timing was good because our friend had been teaching and had some time to work on our project, so we had to jump on it and, um, uh, yeah, it's. Uh, it's funny because I started my theater in high school in New York, at Hunter High, which is where Lin-Manuel also went to school and taught there. No, he's just a little younger than me, but, um, I can, I can brag on him, even though we've never met.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 8:22

It counts, yes you can, though we'd never met, it counts. Yes, you can Well, joseph. How about you? What is your Holmes experience like before this show?

Joseph Travers: 8:33

Well, you know, Doyle's been one of those writers that I've revisited periodically. I also read how to the Baskervilles, probably around the same time as you like late elementary school, early high school, somewhere around there.

Joseph Travers: 8:45

There was a film I think a TV film that had been of the same story, which I was really fascinated by.

Joseph Travers: 8:50

And then I read a few more of the stories after that and got into it for a while, read them all, and then as a young actor I got cast in a stage production of Hound of the Baskervilles as Holmes, and so went back through the whole process again of reading all of Holmes and fell in love with the Jeremy Brett BBC version of Holmes, watched all of them and then during the lockdown I went through Holmes again because I thought, oh, this would be great.

Joseph Travers: 9:20

I'll read all of Holmes again and I read some of the apocryphal stuff that they're not sure whether Doyle wrote or they think maybe his son. Holmes again, and I read some of the apocryphal stuff that they're not sure whether Doyle wrote or they think maybe his son wrote it, and then some newer authors addressing the same characters. So I kind of got into it all again. So it was quite a wonderful coincidence that after all of that Mark reached out and asked me to play this part, because it's certainly been a part that has fascinated me for a really long time. So hopefully I'm somewhat prepared.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 9:45

I love that backstory so much. You're returning to your roots.

Mark Edward Lang: 9:49

I should be asking you questions.

Joseph Travers: 9:51

That's what it feels like. Yeah.

Mark Edward Lang: 9:52

You read the 1,100 pages, man, twice Over time. I'm very impressed.

Joseph Travers: 9:57

Not in a weekend.

Mark Edward Lang: 10:00

Well, joe and I have known each other for many years and so when this came up, I thought Well, joe and I have known each other for many years and so when this came up, I thought who do I know, who I've worked with, who can handle this role? And, as it turns out, joe has worked with us at East Lynne Theater a couple of times as a fight director. He's a very you know, speaking of multi hyphenates, which we all, many of us in the theater, are multihyphenates. Joe is a very talented fight director and teacher, runs his own theater company in New York. So I said he can handle this.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 10:32

So I reached out and I was very pleased to hear that he was available. I'm glad that you get to work together now. I think that's really exciting. Can I ask what led this to becoming a radio play as opposed to a full-staged production? Sure?

Mark Edward Lang: 10:47

Well, the backstory is actually a Cate May thing. So East Lynne Theater. Actually, my wife and I met at East Lynne Theater in 2001. So, even though I'm a New Yorker, I'm an honorary South Jerseyan as well, because she's a Jersey girl and her parents are there and we love coming back and forth as long as the drive is, as long as the drive is Um. So you know, you may know that you know, Cape May is full of beautiful Victorian era houses from the 1880s to the 1910s and uh, so the, the branding that the town, actually the whole town, the city, was landmarked in 1976, which, to my knowledge, no one had ever done before, because they didn't want the developers to tear down these beautiful old houses, and they were. They were starting to, and so a friend of ours at the theater, Bruce Minnix, was the was the mayor at the time and he basically said we're going to landmark the entire city and that's what they did. So since then they've been using that, since it is supposedly America's oldest seaside resort. For those of you who have not been um, it was a Victorian Cape May, so some genius in town had said well, let's do a Sherlock Holmes weekend. And that was a MAC, uh, which is a nonprofit in Cape May, and then the theater company basically said well, if they're doing a Sherlock Holmes weekend, then we should take advantage of that as well. And uh, so for over 20 years, uh, you know, this is actually a, you know part of a long line of uh, of uh, radio style productions that East Lynne has put together and um, so I'm kind of sort of the latest in the chain, uh, as far as doing this adaptation and thinking ahead to some new material for next year.

Mark Edward Lang: 12:35

But there's a simplicity of it as well. I mean, one of the challenges for any theater company is what's your budget? How much time do you have? How much money do you have? How much housing do you have if you're bringing actors in from out of town? So there's a practical side to it. But the other side of it is that it's just so much fun and that one can close their eyes and sort of get pulled into it. What is radio theater? It's like podcasts, it's like, you know, it's storytelling. So there's something very primal about it and in our case we bring it back to the period because there was a Sherlock Holmes radio show that broadcast out of New York for close to 20 years and so we're bringing everybody back to 1938. So there's period music leading in their period, commercials, that that add a little bit of fun to it. So you get a little bit of everything in addition to the sound effects and the drama you know. So we're very much looking forward to it.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 13:41

Wow, everything you just said sounds amazing and, as someone who has not yet had the pleasure of visiting Cape May, I feel like I learned quite a bit there.

Mark Edward Lang: 13:48

Oh, you have to. You have to. Anybody in the area has to go, whether you're in the. Philly area, or it's in Jersey or New York City. There's no place quite like it. You've got the ocean right there and just walk down the side streets and you're just taken back 100 years. It's extraordinary.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 14:08

Well, maybe your show is a good excuse to go.

Mark Edward Lang: 14:11

Absolutely Come on down. You can be our guest.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 14:15

It sounds like a plan to me. Now I have to stop myself from singing. Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast. Oh, focus, Gina. So, Joseph, I'm going to ask you what led you to the theater? What was your journey to becoming an actor or, in Mark's case, writer, director of this piece? But, joseph, I know that you're also wearing multiple hats as well, so theater is a broad scope of everything that you do. But what brought you to the theater?

Joseph Travers: 14:43

I think you know I had a love of plays and of reading plays from elementary school. We in our school as a lot of schools did, I'm sure we read plays in in class and we were all given parts. I was a pretty good reader, so I enjoyed that. I got some really good parts that way. Uh, and then, um, I love to go see theater. We went on school trips where we went to see theater, which was wonderful and very inspiring. Uh, and then I went to school for science.

Joseph Travers: 15:10

I was a physics major, but I wound up starting to do theater in high school and then, when I went away to college, I was very involved in the theater while I was studying physics and finally realized I'm actually headed in the, not the direction I want to go in.

Joseph Travers: 15:25

I want to go in this direction, and so I switched schools and I went to school for theater and kind of never looked back. I was I've been involved in one way or another, as an actor, as a director, as a playwright, as I've spent 30 plus years as a fight director and stage combat teacher, uh, and there's there's something about the ability to be part of an experience that happens live in front of other people, in which everyone, including the audience, is part of creating something that's unique. Every evening, even though we rehearse, even though we prepare, even though we know, quote unquote, what we're going to do, we don't know what's going to happen because we don't know what the audience will experience and what their response will be, and they become a really important part of the whole experience. That circulation between audience and actor is so important. So I think that's certainly one of the big things that has drawn me to. It is that kind of magical experience of it being new every time.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 16:29

What an important note, how important the audience itself is and what you guys bring. I'm talking to our listeners now. You guys bring a lot every time you come to see a show. That energy that the audience brings is what feeds actors.

Mark Edward Lang: 16:46

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, if there are two characters on stage, the third character is always the audience and their energy feeds our energy. And if we're having fun, they're having fun, and if they're listening intently, as they almost always are, there's just nothing like it. I mean, I love movies, I love television, the theater, you know, even as an audience member, when they take the bows at the end, it just there is something magical about it. So I agree with Joe on that.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 17:17

Live theater is. It is unique in its own way and I hope that everyone listening will travel to you, but will also travel to their local theaters. You know, let's not lose this art form Right I think COVID threw us all for a loop when we weren't able to go to theaters for a while, and now that they're back, I know that. You know some local theaters are still struggling, so let's just get out there and go see theater, because it's amazing and why not?

Mark Edward Lang: 17:46

Definitely, definitely. And speaking of multi hyphenates, I think I should mention Arthur. Conan Doyle was trained as a medical doctor, which some people may not know, not unlike Dr Watson, and practice was not super successful, but his writing certainly was. And so you know he pivoted, as one might say, and as I mentioned earlier, he was so successful with Sherlock Holmes that you know he had written all these other you know types of works and was much more proud of them than Holmes. But he got pulled back and you know, once he brought the, I think it was another 20 years he was writing Sherlock Holmes stories after the character was revived. So I guess you know he had to sort of learn to love the character as much as everybody else did.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 18:56

Well, that's another way in which I suppose Joseph is similar to Arthur Conan Doyle, both with a science background, and then led you right into the arts.

Mark Edward Lang: 19:05

Well, there you go. I am not a scientist at all. I have many engineers in my family, including my dad, who was also artistic, but he appreciated the arts. He did beautiful drawings and paintings as a young man and played a little classical guitar and you know. So you know it's cool to and my grandfather as well was from Germany and played the zither on 86th Street and copied out scores, beautiful calligraphy. So he was a visual artist and a musician as well.

Mark Edward Lang: 19:36

As for myself, I grew up in New York but we didn't see a lot of theater growing up, but I was fascinated by the process, particularly of film and television, like how is that put together? And mentioning Star Trek. As a young man I read this book called the Making of Star Trek, where they went into all the writing and the design and the scripting and I just thought this is incredible. So when I was in high school they had the worst video equipment in the world, but I signed up for TV production class and was writing and directing and performing and doing graphics for videos, sometimes comedy videos and things. And then my friend was sort of like the dealer who said you know, man, you got to try the live stage.

Mark Edward Lang: 20:23

Man, I'm like no no I don't want to be in front of all those people. And no, no, no, really you should try it, man. And the rest is history. I started doing theater. I wound up majoring in theater at Vassar College and you know, learning the old school from three old hands who'd been there forever Doing scenic design, doing directing and acting, many of whom had been there since. Meryl Streep was there back in the 70s, so I'll drop her name also. So that was sort of how I got into the theater thing, and I was, I guess, lucky in that I was able to come back home to New York and start auditioning without having to make the move as so many actors do in New York.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 21:16

Well, shout out to Meryl and your wife all the Jersey girls that we're mentioning here, that's right, that's right.

Mark Edward Lang: 21:20

Meryl and your wife, all the Jersey girls that we're mentioning here.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 21:22

That's right. That's right. I love that. Film and television was your gateway medium, so to speak, your gateway to theater. It's usually well, I shouldn't say it's usually the other way around. It was the other way around for me. I'll say that I can't speak for anyone else, but I was a theater major in school and then I somehow pivoted to film and television. So there you have it. We are polar opposites here.

Mark Edward Lang: 21:45

But there's, there's the same thing and to the extent that it's all about the storytelling, it's all about touching an audience, making them laugh, making them cry, making them, you know, making the heartbeat faster. I mean, one of the things about Sherlock Holmes is, people said, this fascination with murder and and and figuring out puzzles. And it's certainly true. In the podcast world, which you can see in Only Murders in the Building, which kind of takes the podcast world and the murder mystery world and mushes them together with comedy elements, there's so much to be mined there.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 22:21

You two have known each other for a while, as you said, so I'd just like to know what are you looking forward to in working together on this show?

Joseph Travers: 22:30

I. I mark's waiting for me to respond.

Joseph Travers: 22:32

1984, I think that, or five one of the two, 85, I think 85 a long hell of a time at the New York Renaissance Festival is where we first met and worked together as actors together. So it's been a very long, wonderful journey. And one of the most fun things about Mark beyond the fact that we're both Star Trek fans and a little geeky about that it's always fun for a Star Trek fan to find another person that they can talk Star Trek with, because a lot of people just kind of you see the glaze go over their eyes when you start. But also we've had a lot of wonderful experiences of sort of a comic back and forth between the two of us. So I think it's great that we're playing Holmes and Watson in a context where there isn't a lot of comedy for us to have back and forth about. I'm sure we will enjoy rehearsals in that way, but when we're actually performing I think it'll be great for us to be able to bounce things off of each other in serious contexts for a change.

Mark Edward Lang: 23:36

Well and just to build on. Well, that's, you know Joe's a gem and so talented, and, and you know, and it's, it's. You know Joe's a gem and so talented, and you know, people kind of get busy with their own things. You don't always get a chance to spend time with old friends, so this is a chance to kind of go side by side. And you know, in the story there are these two characters who've known each other for years, and so we can build that into this presentation as well, which is so cool. And maybe we'll work some Star Trek jokes into it because, you know, leonard Nimoy also played Sherlock Holmes. He did Another fun fact.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 24:15

I did not know that. That's fantastic.

Mark Edward Lang: 24:18

And if you think, about the character Spock is very logical. You know there's some Sherlock Holmes elements in there and if you think about the character Spock is very logical, there's some Sherlock Holmes elements in there that built into it from the beginning, very stoic, that sort of thing. So you can see the connection.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 24:34

This is the kind of Star Trek trivia I didn't know that I needed, but you do, you absolutely do, gina. You're going to have to sell me on Star Trek later, but first, how about you sell our audience on your show? How would you like to speak directly to our audience and let them know that they should come to see this show?

Mark Edward Lang: 24:53

Well, let's start with Cape May. We're talking a little bit about Cape May. Cape May is amazing. East Lynne Theater has been around for over 40 years. Amazing East Lynne Theater has been around for over 40 years in South Jersey. We perform in this beautiful historic church right near the ocean. There are fantastic restaurants. Everywhere there's shops.

Mark Edward Lang: 25:22

Even if you know the stories, maybe you don't know all the details of the stories. Holmes' arch nemesis Moriarty makes his biggest appearance, basically, and who's behind this whole crime wave? And Holmes is the only one who knows that that's going on. And so there's this whole cat and mouse game that they play and they travel all over Europe. I mean the way that Conan Doyle plotted it out. They follow each other around. They wind up in Switzerland, of all places. By the way.

Mark Edward Lang: 25:55

I went on vacation last year to Switzerland and my cousin said, oh, my cabin is right near Reichenbach Falls. And I said what? So? Yeah, my mom is Swiss and so I have Swiss cousins, and there I was, having been working on this script, and there was the Reichenbach Falls. So for those of you who come and you hear the sound of the Reichenbach Falls in our radio show, it is the actual sound of the actual Reichenbach Falls. I'm just saying that's authenticity. Even though it just sounds like static, it's the real sound of the real Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, but you get to see Joe Travers play the lead role, and so what could be better? What could be a better way to spend a Friday or Saturday night in Cape May?

Joseph Travers: 26:41

I'll be there, for sure, that's right.

Mark Edward Lang: 26:43

Either or be square.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 26:46

Oh my gosh, what an Easter egg that is. Speaking of sound, though, it's so important in a radio show. Is there a sound designer that you'd like to shout out, or is that you also?

Mark Edward Lang: 26:56

I would be me also. I mean, you know I love tech stuff. I was doing videos forever, and so you know digital audio is, is um? Actually, the person who I need to shout out to is my brother who's speaking of multi hyphen. It's as a, as a, as a doctor, he's a veterinarian, but he's also loves music, and so when I needed a theme song, I thought maybe I'll ask Andrew if he wants to come up with something, and he came up with this delightful little bumper intro outro for the shows, including a little violin sound, because Sherlock Holmes played the violin, and so I give the shout out to my brother, Andrew. He did a fantastic job on that.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 27:38

It's a family affair. That's fantastic, Joseph. Would you like to add to that that it's a family affair? That's fantastic, Joseph. Would you like to add to that?

Joseph Travers: 27:43

That it's a family affair.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 27:45

Or what you'd like to say to our audience.

Joseph Travers: 27:48

I would say, in addition to everything that Mark just said, and having been to Cape May multiple times, I want to second everything he said about the atmosphere of Cape May. It really does feel like you're walking around in the past when you're walking around, and it's beautiful to be so close to the shore and I, for one, love to be near the beach in the fall, as opposed to in the summer, when it's a little less crowded and it's wonderful and beautiful to walk along. In addition to that, I would say that the script that Mark has put together bridging really two stories together in one evening because, as he mentioned earlier, these were separate tales the tale in which we lose Holmes and then the tale in which we get him back and he's bridged them into one story, one continuous story, and it is exciting, it is compelling. You get a taste of the relationship between Holmes and Watson. That really gives a sense of the affection between Holmes and Watson. That that really gives a sense of the affection between them and also their ability to work together as a team.

Joseph Travers: 28:48

And you get a sense of Holmes's mind, which is incredibly perceptive and at the same time, he's constantly having to adjust to changes because Moriarty and the people who are supporting Moriarty are the creme de la creme of crime. So he doesn't know all the answers already and I think the conclusion of the piece, which I will not give away, is it's a great turn at the end of the story and a wonderful way to finish it up. Returning to what feels like Doyle agreeing with the audience that he's willing to continue writing this character now for, as Mark put it, another 20 years. So I would say the story itself and the way that Mark has dramatized it is a great reason to come and enjoy in the frame of the radio play format, which is really a lot of fun. We've come to it and enjoy the evening well, I'm excited.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 29:46

I think it sounds like such an amazing production and it's about time that I re-familiarize myself with Sherlock Holmes. I can't, I can't have only read that one book.

Mark Edward Lang: 29:57

That will not be enough for the rest of my lifetime, although it's like a podcast, you don't you know, if you come to the show, you don't have to read those two stories because we, you know, we present them very faithfully.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 30:07

I must say that's the way I can get around reading.

Mark Edward Lang: 30:16

Let's see. I mentioned that Holmes is the most portrayed human literary character according to the Guinness Book of World Records, and I'm like wondering who's the most portrayed non-human literary character? But that's a question for another day. Supposedly there are. The other statistic was that there are 25,000 plus adaptations of Sherlock Holmes between stage, TV, film and print, and so if we're 25,001, so be it. It's still a ton of fun. These characters are so rich, these puzzles have so many layers to them and it's a great bunch of actors who are going to have a lot of fun presenting it.

Mark Edward Lang: 31:05

Um, as I said, it's been a tradition now in Cape May for many years to radio-style these shows. Uh, there are other things going on that weekend that, uh, Cape May MAC has put together. So, uh, you know, for those of you who have some, For those of you who have a free weekend in November, we're running for those two weekends and you can find out more at ELTC. info or EastLynneTheater. org, where it's all laid out for you. And there's a Christmas show as well, Christmas Cabaret. So if you're there in early December, there's more going on before the end of the year.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 31:39

Thank you so much and I have to say, since this is a radio play, I have to comment on how wonderful both of your voices are, so I'm looking forward to hearing you again on stage.

Mark Edward Lang: 31:49

Well, thank you. Should we do English now? Let's go English, all right.

Joseph Travers: 31:53

If you insist. If you insist, no problem, no problem. Yes, let's not give away the show, though. Watson? No, certainly not Holmes.

Gina Marie Rodriguez: 32:05

Certainly not. The Death of Sherlock Holmes runs two weekends only Friday and Saturday, November 15th and 16th, and November 22nd and 23rd 7 pm . Please visit EastLynneTheater. org for tickets and more information. If you liked this episode, be sure to review, subscribe, and tell your friends. A transcript of this podcast, links relevant to the story and more about the arts in New Jersey can be found at JerseyArts. com. The Jersey Arts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986. The show was co-founded by and currently supported by, funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts. This episode was hosted, edited and produced by me, Gina Marie Rodriguez. Executive producers are Jim Atkinson and Isaac Serna-Diez, and my thanks to today's guests, Mark Lang and Joseph Travers, for their time. I'm Gina Marie Rodriguez for the Jersey Arts Podcast. Thanks for listening.