Leeds Theatres — 'Sherlock Holmes' & Mr. Gillette
Leeds Theatres — 'Sherlock Holmes' & Mr. Gillette is an article published in The Leeds Mercury on 29 april 1902.
About the play Sherlock Holmes at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, UK.
'Sherlock Holmes' & Mr. Gillette
When it comes to dramatising a story, or even a series of stories, the greatest of all the many difficulties that the process involves is the transplantation of the real atmosphere of the story from the story to the stage. This is one of the reasons why the adaptations of popular novels for stage purposes is so often attended with disastrous results. The characters and even the incidents are there, but the distinguishing atmosphere has vanished entirely, and the whole thing falls flat and unprofitable.
These casual reflections are encouraged owing to the remarkable exception to the rule suggested which is furnished in the play founded by Mr. William Gillette upon an adventure hitherto unrecorded -in the life of that most splendid creature of the imagination, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. It was quite feasible to admit the possibility and even the desirability of placing an "adventure" or even a series of "adventures" of the famous detective and deducer from trifles upon the stage. But the thing was to convey Sherlock Holmes to the playgoer amid just that fascinating environment that has made his personality occupy the place it does in contemporary fiction. The successful accomplishment of this task may have been an accident. It does not much matter; the fact remains that the play as presented to an enthusiastic audience at the Grand Theatre last night was not only a clever play, but was permeated with just that atmosphere of mysticism and romance that most of us, who had thought anything at all about the matter, expected to find absent.
The cynic will say that the lighting effects have most to do with the success of "Sherlock Holmes." Assuredly they have a great deal. But if such a reason for success can stand the test of examination, no excuse need be urged for it so long as it be the means of teaching our English stage-managers what a lot they have yet to learn of the real possibilities of adequate and effective "lighting" on the stage. Nothing more artistic (from this point of view) can be imagined than the final curtain (so to speak) of "Sherlock Holmes." Without this ingenious manipulation, the scene would have lost ninety-five per cent. of its romance, and therefore, its effect.
We have not the space, nor is there need, to recount what manner of adventure this is that the play tells of. Few playgoers will want any unnecessary persuasion to induce them to go and see for themselves. Those who have read Dr. Conan Doyle's stories, and entertain no harsh views about theatres, will flock to see their beloved hero in the flesh, and none of them, we venture to think, will go unrewarded.
Mr. Gillette is an actor of detail, and he fairly revels in his part. He speaks on one note all the way through, but he plays on many. He is, in his way. a master of his art. It is always delightful to watch him, and his telling work in that really wonderful first act, with its suggestions of the weird and mysterious villainy, is amongst the finest things this clever American actor can ever hope to do. Indeed, he need hope to do few things better.
Mr. W. L. Abingdon is Professor Moriarty to the life, though it is true he might suggest the craftiness and utter villainy of the man more forcibly than he does. As it is, Mr. Abingdon would have us believe, so it seems, that the Professor was a man rather easily cowed. Still, what are you to do with a revolver muzzle pressed against your face, and your own barrels incontinently emptied? A clever bit of acting is that of Mr. Sydney Herbert as the butler-paid-agent; and Miss Alida Cortelyou suggested the abandoned villainy of the woman Larrabee admirably. "Sherlock Holmes," as a play, and with Mr. Gillette in the title rôle, is certainly worthy of the stories from which it emanated, than which no more praise need be given.
