WEST COAST ‘SHERLOCK’ ON BROADWAY

The Broadway season has opened with a California import, “Sherlock’s Last Case. “ First performed by the Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre in ‘84, the version at the Nederlander Theatre stars Frank Langella as Sherlock Holmes.

Two of the three New York papers that decide a play’s fate liked Charles Marowitz’s revisionist approach to Holmes and Dr. Watson. One--the New York Times--hated it.

Howard Kissel of the Daily News thought that Marowitz’s arrogant, cold portrait of Holmes was “right for our skeptical times” and found the plot “full of surprises.” Langella’s characterization likewise struck Kissel as perfect, in its calculation and self-absorption.

In the Post, Clive Barnes suggested that Marowitz had inflicted “a certain amount of stylistic mayhem on his eminent Victorian.” Still Barnes found the play “a likely tale, diabolically ingenious and fastidiously slight.” Langella’s performance? “Masterly.”

The New York Times’ Frank Rich wasn’t convinced by Langella, whom he thought gave a “perfunctory” performance. As for Marowitz’s script, he found it well below the standard of such recent Holmes pastiches as “The Crucifer of Blood.” His one-word verdict: “excruciating.”

Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman have rewritten “Follies” for London, and London seems to like it. The West End version has a more hopeful ending, some new Sondheim songs and such elegant performers as Diana Rigg, Daniel Massey and Julia McKenzie.

Patrick O’Connor in the Times Literary Supplement didn’t think Rigg’s strip-tease number, “Ah, But Underneath,” was that much of an improvement over “The Story of Lucy and Jessie,” but he still found the show a beguiling salute to the world of the Follies.

Variety found Goldman’s book “still on the soapy side,” but Sondheim’s songs triumphant. “It stacks up as the best ‘new’ musical in town. No crystal ball needed to predict a long run.”

AMPLIFICATION DEPT. Designer Charles Berliner writes: “Thanks for the mention about the United States winning the gold medal at the Prague quadrennial of Scenic and Costume Design. In actual fact, however, it is not a gold medal but a gold Baroque sculpture representing three golden horses of victory, currently at the home of U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia Julian M. Niemczyk. The sculpture will be sent to the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, D.C.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK. Playwright John Ford Noonan, in Daily Variety: “I feel comfortable working in Los Angeles. They don’t know me there.”