Wm. Gillette as Sherlock Holmes at Academy

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Wm. Gillette as Sherlock Holmes at Academy is an article published in The Sun (Baltimore) on 13 november 1900.

This was the play Sherlock Holmes at Nixon & Zimmerman's Academy of Music in Baltimore, MD (USA).


Wm. Gillette as Sherlock Holmes at Academy

The Sun (Baltimore) (13 november 1900, p. 7)

THEATRES LAST NIGHT

Wm. Gillette As Sherlock Holmes At Academy.

SHERLOCK HOLMES — A drama in four acts, by Dr. A. Conan Doyle and William Gillette.

First Act — Drawing room at the Larrabees' — evening. Second Act — Scene 1, Professor Moriarity's underground office — morning; Scene II, Sherlock Holmes' apartments in Baker street — evening. Third Act — The Stepney gas chamber — midnight. Fourth Act — Doctor Watson's office — Kensington — the following evening.

In "Sherlock Holmes," as given last night at the Academy of Music, William Gillette is the incarnation of the astute detective. whose clever work by deduction has been portrayed by Dr. Doyle. There is the cool, cynical, resourceful man of the law combatting with confidence the plotting of the master criminals and always thwarting them, although without too much melodramatic accompaniment.

The story is the case of Miss Faulkner and is woven about the attempts to get possession of a packet of incriminating letters. Sherlock Holmes is engaged on the case and against him is pitted Professor Moriarty, the master mind of the under world, who makes the case an excuse for an effort to make way with Holmes. Of course the criminals are outwitted, although their schemes are allowed enough scope to keep the audience absorbed in interest and thrilled with the danger into which the detective places himself with such apparent nonchalance. Through it all runs a slender thread of love — the love of Holmes for Miss Faulkner, which leads him to imperil his professional reputation. but she saves him from that, and all ends as it should with the capture of the arch-conspirators and the happiness of the lovers.

Next to the work of Mr. Gillette, which is quite in keeping with his usual impersonations in that line, there was interest in the novel mechanical and electrical means used to produce the desired effects in the play. The raising of the curtain at the beginning of each act was done in absolute darkness, from which the light would break upon the completed stage picture. Then at the end of the act, instead of the curtain sliding down to hide the stage, the lights again went out upon the concluding tableau. Flashes, or "winks," of the lights gave two or three glimpses of the scene, and then all was dark until the lights went up again, to show the curtain, which had been noiselessly dropped in the meantime. Some of the scenes gradually faded away by a clever manipulation of the lights, a single ray falling upon the faces of the performers, until that, too, was extinguished, while at the end of others there was an abrupt transition from light to darkness.

Miss Maude Fealy has scarcely as much opportunity for acting as she had last year as Eunice in "Quo Vadis," but her interpretation of Miss Faulkner is well done. Although yet in her teens, this young actress shows much promise. Olive Oliver was capable in the adventuress part. Frederick Truesdell was pleasing as the Doctor. George Wessels made the most of Professor Moriarty, while Ralph Delmore, Reuben Fox, George Honey and Henry McArdle were up to the requirements of their parts.





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