Mr. Gillette as Sherlock Holmes (article 14 october 1900)
This article was published in The Brooklyn Citizen on 14 october 1900.
Article
MR. GILLETTE AS SHERLOCK HOLMES.
The attractions at both the Montauk and Columbia Theaters this week will be "repeats," the Montauk retaining "Sherlock Holmes" and the Columbia "Hearts Are Trumps." At the former house Mr. Gillette has played to business well up to the five-figure mark, and it is highly probable that the citizens of this borough will continue to evince a lively interest in the actor and his medium until the close of the engagement next Saturday evening. Few dramas ever keep theater-goers so continuously absorbed as this "Sherlock Holmes" interpreted by the tall, gaunt and sepulchral-voiced Gillette. After having seen it, they go home and tell their friends about it, and not infrequently return themselves again to experience the fascination of the great detective's preternatural quickness, contempt of danger, and indifferent ennuyed manner. What "Sherlock Holmes" would amount to in other hands than Gillette's, it is, perhaps, useless to speculate. His personality causes audiences in fashionable theaters to accept the most improbable incidents such as are ordinarily reserved for the gratification of audiences in the ten, twenty and thirty." No rude laughter breaks the spell of the representation. There is hearty laughter, it is true, but occasioned by Holmes' dry, satiric style and his cleverness in outwitting his adversaries and not by the absurdities of the play.
