William Gillette in Sherlock Holmes at the Montauk
This article was published in Brooklyn Life on 6 october 1900.
The play was the William Gillette "Sherlock Holmes" performed at the Montauk Theatre, Brooklyn, NY (USA).
Article
WILLIAM GILLETTE,
As he will appear in "Sherlock Holmes" at the Montauk, next week.
Next Monday night will be a red letter one at the Brooklyn theaters in that no less than three of the greatest successes of the last season across the river will be simultaneously introduced here. William Gillette will begin a fortnight's engagement in "Sherlock Holmes" at the Montauk; the Drury Lane melodrama, "Hearts are Trumps," will be put on at the Columbia for a like period, while James K. Hackett will appear at the Amphion in "The Pride of Jennico." Nor does the list of novelties announced end with these productions; a brand new melodrama, "Slaves of the Orient," being booked at the Grand Opera House and the latest Ethiopian offering of Williams and Walker at the Bijou. For the rest. the Gayety will have "The Dairy Farm" once more, Payton's a revival of "Aristocracy," and Hyde & Behman's the usual excellent vaudeville bill.
As "Sherlock Holmes" has been seen nowhere else since its seven months' sojourn at the Garrick, the Montauk engagement will be practically a resumption of the metropolitan run. That the play which Mr. Gillette and A. Conan Doyle have so cleverly evolved from the latter's story, "The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner," will be quite as successful here goes without saying. Its coming has, in fact, been awaited with an intensity of interest that only a few productions possessing certain unique qualities are able to command. What these qualities are, in the case of "Sherlock Holmes," would be extremely difficult to out-line briefly in advance. Nor would it be best to do so, for there is in it a delightful element of surprise that would better be left for the action itself to unfold. Suffice it, then, to say that it is an immensely entertaining melodrama that shows Mr. Gillette at his best. The Montauk cast will offer a notable change in the substitution of that remarkably talented young actress, Maude Fealy, for Katharine Florence, in the rôle of Alice. The play is most picturesquely put upon the stage.
