By SHARON EBERSON
Some things are such crowd-pleasers, they bear repeating. Even within the packed realm of Christmas-time theater, that holds true for Kinetic Theatre’s finely tuned, atmospheric production of A Sherlock Carol.
Introduced last year at the Stephen Foster Memorial’s downstairs theater, the show this season travels from Oakland to the intimate Carnegie Stage, a gain in connectivity between cast and audience that rises to an immersive experience.
David Whalen’s charisma and commitment to the character of Sherlock Holmes is unabated in his seventh time inhabiting the character, in collaboration with Kinetic leader and director Andrew Paul. Whalen plays a Holmes in need of a jolt to snap him out of a deep depression, and a ghostly visitation might be just the thing to reawaken his deductive senses.
Playwright Mark Shanahan has woven an intricate mashup of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous consulting detective and the characters of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, set in a time several years after the spiritual awakening of literature’s most famous rehabilitated miser, Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Holmes is in despair, following the loss of his chief nemesis — “Moriarty was dead, to begin with,” is the jumping off point of the story — and thus begins his journey to reclaim his purpose, reunite with old friends, and make some new ones.
Apart from Whalen’s Holmes, everyone plays multiple roles, and all move set pieces, and enter or exit with choreographic precision, making for a truly kinetic production. Simon Bradbury and James FitzGerald, both terrific, along with Whalen, in Kinetic’s Hangmen in August of this year, return to A Sherlock Carol and the roles of Dr. Watson and Scrooge, respectively, along with other characters equally well-met.
For the second time in the two productions, there was a last-minute replacement, this time around with Erika Cuenca stepping into multiple roles. Last year, Helena Ruoti replaced Susan MacGregor-Laine, who in 2025 delights in the juicy role of Mrs. Dilber, among others.
Rounding out the cast is the return of Joseph McGranaghan, last seen as a corporate villain in Quantum Theatre’s Enron, and here the epitome of goodness, as Dr. Timothy Cratchit, as well as some less savory characters. Mackenzie Heidenreich, a University of Pittsburgh student, makes her Kinetic debut as Emma Wiggins, a Baker Street Irregular who, like Tim Cratchit, seeks Holmes’ help when the detective is at his lowest ebb.
Among the joys that transfer to Carnegie with A Sherlock Carol are the intricate atmospheric details, including the evocative black-and-white set by Johnmichael Bohach, which has been eased into the tight space with lighting by Andrew Ostrowski. Live musical underscoring by composer/pianist Douglas Levine, joined by Cara Garofalo on violin, lends a cinematic air throughout the richly realized production.
Seeing the show for a second time was also cause to revisit some biographical details I recalled about Conan Doyle, who was born just a few years after the death of Dickens, and surely would have been familiar with A Christmas Carol, which was an immediate success and became the cultural phenomenon that persists today.
Unlike Doyle’s famously fact-based detective, the author himself became an advocate for spiritualism and a staunch believer of the paranormal.
I imagine Doyle would have approved of a show that so admiringly combines his passion for scientific reason with occult, and the showman in Dickens would have been equally delighted with the show now onstage in Carnegie.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Kinetic Theatre’s production of A Sherlock Carol is at Carnegie Stage, 25 S. Main Street, Carnegie, through December 21, 2025. For tickets, visit https://www.kinetictheatre.org/.
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