Provincial Productions — "Sherlock Holmes"

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Provincial Productions — "Sherlock Holmes" is an article published in The Stage on 5 september 1901.

About the play Sherlock Holmes at the Shakespeare Theatre, Liverpool, UK.


Provincial Productions — "Sherlock Holmes"

The Stage (5 september 1901, p. 9)

On Monday, September 2, 1901, there was produced at the Shakespeare, Liverpool, for the first time in England, a play in four acts by A. Conan Doyle and William Gillette, entitled:—

Sherlock Holmes.

Submitted on Monday night to an immense audience, Sherlock Holmes passed triumphantly through its English initiation. It says much for the catholic disposition and the cosmopolitan nature of English playgoers that so fervid and enthusiastic a welcome was accorded to the American actor, William Gillette, who embodied Conan Doyle's famous creation, Sherlock Holmes. To many Mr. Gillette was merely a name in the bill; to others an American actor, more impersonal than, to them, actual; and to a few only, of their own observation, a man of sterling ability and approved gifts. Yet all combined in the general welcome, and one was as hearty as the other in vieing to make the stranger feel at home amongst us. Stripped of all such adventitious interest as is suggested in the above, if we forget that the herald of advent had been clamouring rather loudly about us for some weeks past, and dismiss all extrinsic elements of the event, Sherlock Holmes is found to be nothing more than melodrama illustrative of a low type of humanity. As a piece of stage-craft it is not comparable with many of a like class of play on the English stage. And as a melodrama of taste and sentiment, it is immeasurably short of such works as The Silver King, In the Ranks, Harbour Lights, The Lights of London, and so on. But it may be, and no doubt is, that the aim of the authors has only been to provide interesting and ingenious surroundings wherein the famous detective, in the person of Mr. Gillette, may be seen and admired by the public.

In this they have succeeded, for Mr. Gillette draws one to him irresistibly with a fascination which comes only from a deeply interesting personality, combined with rare gifts of artistic temperament and acquired stage qualities. It is a fine power, that of convincingly realising upon the stage the famous creature of the novelist. If Mr. Gillette is not everything we imagined of Sherlock Holmes, it is pretty safe to prophesy that no other man will come nearer to him. The pale, ascetio face, the long, flexible hands, the gaunt, angular figure, the penetrative look, and the keen, nervous, and alert action, go to make up, not our own conception of the famous detective, but the novelist's portrayal of him in his books. As to the story, we are told that it is a "hitherto unpublished episode in the career of the great detective, and showing his connection with the strange case of Miss Faulkner."

The play opens at the luxurious London home of a couple of swell adventurers, Mr. and Mrs. Larrabee. These precious scoundrels have drawn in their toils a young girl, Alice Faulkner, ostensibly to befriend her, really to obtain from her documents incriminating a certain nobleman in the ruin of Alice Faulkner's sister. It is their intention to get possession of these papers and blackmail the nobleman; it is Alice's desire to hold them until such time as the nobleman shall seek to marry, when she will produce them and damn him in the eyes of his betrothed, and so revenge her dead and disgraced sister. This is the foundation of the story. The fabric which arises therefrom comes of the desire of the nobleman to secure the documents himself from his victim's sister and 50 save himself from scandal. To this end he employs Holmes, who, in his pursuit of the documents, brings himself in antagonism to the Larrabees. It is at their house we make his acquaintance. There is no vain show or parade about his coming, but his very name sends a thrill of terror through the Larrabees and their "pal," Sidney Price. If, says Price, Sherlock Holmes is on the job there is only one man to put against him, and that man is Professor Moriarty, and the actual incident of the papers is lost sight of in the conflict between these two pre-eminent powers — the perpetration of crime and its overthrow. Neither persecution, cruelty, nor threats have prevailed with Alice to give up the papers to the Larrabees; neither will entreaty, kindly and gently made to her, induce her to part with them to Holmes, to the unholy joy of the arch-villains. Alice has hidden them, and none but she knows where. Holmes suspects that they are somewhere in the room which we see. By a ruse he creates an alarm of fire in the kitchen below. The Larrabees see to this, and, in apprehension, Alice darts to one of the easy chairs only to be swiftly intercepted by Holmes, who tears open the covering, and finds the papers. Alice, however, demands her property, and, as Holmes cannot "steal" them from her, he, in the Larrabees' presence, returns the papers to her, sternly warning those miscreants of the peril they stand in should they further molest her. This would seem to end the matter, but the Larrabees lay the case before Moriarty, and here the real force of the play begins. Moriarty thinks only of the papers as a tangible cause for trying conclusions with Holmes, and by a series of traps (all of which Holmes sees, and walks wide-eyed into, to the utter confusion of the enemy) he seeks to kill him. In the working out of these schemes lie the magnetic attractions of the play, for situation after situation is cunningly devised, ingeniously constructed, and so dramatically carried out that there is no restraint of applause. We watch the game of two skilful players and applaud by turns the varying triumphs of each. Moriarty's first actual move is made at Holmes's place in Baker Street, and though the play is but the fence and subterfuge of the veriest melodrama, it is absorbingly interesting, and not without a depth of fascination. Holmes outwits Moriarty in the move, and the latter thereupon shifts his ground to the Stepney Gas Chamber, to which he has "lured" Holmes, but for which that astute one has made every preparation. Alice Faulkner has followed Larrabee to this den and offers to give up the papers to him if Holmes is allowed to go harmless. After extracting from her the secret of their new hiding place Larrabee fastens her in an inner chamber just as Holmes walks calmly in. Then follows the great, and certainly enthralling situation of the piece. Holmes is here ostensibly to buy the documents Larrabee says he is empowered to sell, but Moriarty has had a false package made up, and this is to be offered. Holmes is aware of this false package, but comes nevertheless. There is but one entrance to the chamber which the gang will watch; a window behind is heavily barred, and there is apparently no escape for the detective. But those who know their Sherlock Holmes hold their souls in patience, without themselves seeing a way out of the difficulty. There is a skilful verbal working-up to the situation during which Holmes, the while smoking his cigar, taunts the whole gang. A low cry behind him, and he flies to the release of Alice. With her in his arms his difficulty seems greater. Death stares him in the face, the gang return his taunts with threats of speedy death. There is no escape, they exultingly shout. None but by the window, where there are three loose bars, he retorts. And, lifting up a chair he brings it crashing down upon the lamp, and in an instant the stage is in absolute blackness. There is a sudden cry of "Go for the light of his cigar," and there is seen in the darkness the dull red glow Holmes's cigar retreating towards the window. There is a rush by the entire gang for that quarter, and a growl of baffled rage when it is discovered that Holmes has stuck his lighted cigar in a crevice of the window and then escaped with Alice by the door, locking the villains in their own trap, There is a further and final scene in Watson's consulting room, Here all sorts of disguises and devices are resorted to by the remnant of the gang to entrap the detective, culminating in the disguise of Moriarty as a cabman, who enters to take Holmes' luggage to the station. It is their intention to secure him again in the cab and drive him to another haunt. But while in the act of lifting the portmanteau Moriarty is swooped down upon by Holmes and safely handcuffed, and the game is finally won by him, to the enormous relish of the audience. Alice gives up the papers voluntarily, and her love and herself at the same time, to Holmes, and he restores them to the foreign nobleman, and the play ends.

Those who argue that the taste for melodrama is waning would be surprised to note the absorbing intensity with which every part of the house followed the course of the play. Some few of those present had probably never set eyes upon melodrama before, but they found that, mounted and stage-managed in the best style, and carefully and ably acted, this class of play must have very great and fascinating elements of interest and pleasure. In support of Mr. Gillette, Mr. W. L. Abingdon comes next with a carefully thought-out picture of Moriarty. Those who have read of the death of Holmes by the hand of this man will find an artistic realisation of this crafty scoundrel in Mr. Abingdon's make-up and acting. Mr. Fuller Mellish plays Sidney Prince with his known ability. Very good work is displayed by Mr. Ralph Delmore as Larrabee, and Mr. Sydney Herbert is distinctly valuable as Holmes's assistant, Forman. Mr. Percy Lyndal plays the fatuous Doctor Watson crisply and with much precision, and the lesser parts are all clearly and ably set forth. Miss Maude Fealy makes a most tender and feeling Alice Faulkner. It is a man's play throughout, and offers but slight chances for any womanly emotional acting, but Miss Fealy's beautifully modulated voice and affecting graces made an impression upon the house. Miss Charlotte Granville makes a handsome and striking feature of the forbidding woman Madge Larrabee, and plays the part perfectly. Miss Louise Collins makes all the points possible as Thérèse. Mr. Gillette in response to loud calls thanked the audience for the warmth and generosity of their feeling. He said there was so much of it that there was plenty to share all round his Co. He took just a little praise to himself and his Co., but gave the bulk of it to Dr. Conan Doyle, whose wonderful creation he had attempted to place before them as "little damaged as possible."






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