Wm. Gillette Portrays "Sherlock Holmes"

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Wm. Gillette Portrays "Sherlock Holmes" is an article published in The Boston Globe on 19 february 1901.

About the play Sherlock Holmes at the Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, MA, USA.


Wm. Gillette Portrays "Sherlock Holmes"

The Boston Globe (19 february 1901, p. 8)

DRAMA AND MUSIC.

Wm. Gillette Portrays "Sherlock Holmes."

HOLLIS-ST THEATRE — "Sherlock Holmes," a drama in four acts, by Dr A. Conan Doyle and William Gillette. First time in Boston. The cast:

Mr William Gillette presented his "Sherlock Holmes" to as many Bostonians last evening as could possibly crowd themselves into the Hollis-st theatre, and a better pleased audience has not been brought together for many a night.

It was a gathering of social prestige, but never did a "popular price" audience give freer vent to its feelings or applaud a thrilling situation more lustily.

The play is a succession of "thrillers," rivaling in intensity and improbability any that ever came from the London Drury-lane theatre, that home of English melodrama. But while "Sherlock Holmes" is quite as improbable and rather more prolific in nerve-straining and hair-raising characteristics, it is as different from the average English melodrama as a Meissonier painting is unlike a penny chromo.

Mr Gillette's play is consummately clever. For real worth it is not comparable with "Secret Service," "Held by the Enemy" and some other plays by this author, but it is amazingly effective in its powers to interest and entertain.

As an example of stagecraft applied to scenery, lights and "business," it is really remarkable. For completeness of detail and suggestion of realism the stage settings of the four acts of "Sherlock Holmes" have not been excelled, and in the management of lights there is genuine originality. The dramatist uses light and darkness at the beginning and ending of each act instead of the usual curtain, with results that are strikingly effective, though rather theatrical.

Mr Gillette had no easy task in making a dramatization of A. Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories, so the splendid success he has made is all the more commendable. Dr Doyle and Mr Gillette are credited equally as the playwrights, but it is evident that the latter has done most of the work in this instance. The plot is as slender as that of the average melodrama, simply a succession of episodes strung together with admirable skill.

The story told is almost wholly new, but the mythical detective of immortal fame is the same person we have admired in Dr Doyle's books in all respects except that the Sherlock Holmes of the stage succumbs to feminine charms. The "love interest" however, is a very minor feature, just sufficient not to defy the established rule that every melodrama must have its hero and heroine to be happily united before the final curtain falls.

The story chiefly concerns the relentless war which Holmes wages on his ancient enemy, Prof Moriarty, "the Napoleon of crime," who, like some horrid spider at the center of his web, watches the struggles of his victims and feels instantly the quivering of every strand." The opportunity to catch and destroy Moriarty, an opportunity he has long been seeking and longing for, comes at last.

A pair of blackmailers, Mr and Mrs Larrabee, unwillingly furnish it to him. A girl has been ruined by "an exalted personage" and has died as a result of her ruin. His compromising letters come into the possession of her sister, Alice Faulkner, who is left destitute and friendless.

The Larrabees, knowing the circumstances, assist Alice to England, keep her and her mother in their house until the exalted personage is about to marry, and then try to force her to give them the valuable documents, which she herself means to employ as a weapon of revenge.

She foils them, with the aid of Holmes, who has been employed by the exalted personage's family. He, too, wants to get possession of them, and actually does so, but returns them because he has been touched by her weakness. The Larrabees thereupon enlist the services of a professor, who wants to put Holmes out of the way. By a series of ingenious and daring expedients Holmes foils Moriarty, restores the letters to his employer, and eventually winds around the professor the unbreakable coils of justice.

Ne synopsis of the story could give an idea of the interest of the play, for that consists in the succession of exciting episodes and clever devices, some very old to the stage, but presented in a way that makes them seem new.

There were dozens of curtain calls after each act last night, but the greatest demonstration came at the close of the third scene. This act is distinctly characteristle of Mr Gillette, the inveterate smoker, and has for its foundation the clever utilization of a cigar. The detective and the girl who holds the papers are entrapped into a gas-chamber by Moriarty and his confederates, who desire the papers for the purpose of blackmail. A lamp furnishes the sole illumination of the apartment. As the desperate crowd approaches the detective, he lights a cigar, puffs vigorously, raises a chair in the air, smashes the lamp and plunges the apartment into total darkness except for the incandescent glow on the end of the weed, and then sticks the cigar in a crevice of a window. Moriarty tells h's men to follow the glow of the cigar, and, as they surround the window, Gillette and the girl escape by a door on an opposite side of the chamber.

There are lots of other good and thrilling situations, but this will give a fair idea of the admirable manner in which the play has been devised.

Regarding Mr Gillette's impersonation of Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the most fitting praise is to say that it is of equal merit with his work as dramatist and stage manager — that he scored and deserved a triple triumph. It cannot be imagined that any actor could give a more perfect realization of the character as drawn by Dr Doyle in his stories; and in giving this he simply follows his methods made familiar in other plays. Gillette of the stage is a very good prototype of the Holmes of fiction. He displays the same unruffled imperturbability, the same inexhaustable resource-fulness and the same faculty for terse and telling epigram. The role makes no more severe demands on him than several earlier characterizations, but it is not unlikely that his Sherlock Holmes will longest remain in memory.

The character of the detective so dominates the performance that all the other characters seem of minor importance, but they were all well played last evening. Especially good was Mr Fax' portrayal of Sherlock's lieutenant. Delmore was excellent as Larrabee, and Mr Wesells was also very effective as the villainous professor. Mr Truesdale gave an intelligent impersonation of the physician, and clever bits were contributed by Mr Honey as a burglar and by Mr McArdle as "Billy."

Miss Olive Oliver took first honors among the ladies of the cast, deservedly so, for her impersonation of an adventuress was admirable in all respects, remarkably effective, considering her limited opportunities. Miss Fealy was sweet and ingenuous as the mild-mannered heroine, and the minor roles were adequately presented.

During Gillette's engagement there will be no Wednesday matinees at the Hollis. This week there will be an extra matinee performance on Washington's birthday. The performance begins promptly at 7:45 o'clock.




Retrieved from "https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=Wm._Gillette_Portrays_%22Sherlock_Holmes%22&oldid=141104"