Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes (1899), a play by William Gillette. [Garrick Theatre, 256 perf.] Alice Faulkner ( Katherine Florence) holds letters written to her late sister by a member of royalty. She believes that her sister died of a broken heart from the man's faithlessness and is determined to use the letters against him. But Madge ( Judith Berolde) and James Larrabee ( Ralph Delmore), two blackmailers, also want the letters and are holding Alice prisoner. Sherlock Holmes (Gillette) is called into the case and by arranging a fake fire manages to discover the whereabouts of the letters and to free Alice. But the Larrabees have called in Professor Moriarty ( George Wessells) to aid them. One by one Holmes foils his designs, although it seems that when Moriarty lures Alice and the detective to a shabby, gloomy gas works, he has caught them in his vise. Holmes throws the place into darkness and tricks the villains as to his whereabouts with a lighted cigar. He convinces Alice to give up the letters to the proper authorities, and she finds herself falling in love with Holmes. The Charles Frohman offering, based on short stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (whom some early programs listed as co‐author), was Gillette's greatest success. For many years he alone was identified with the role, which he returned to regularly as late as 1931. A richly Victorian revival by the Royal Shakespeare Company, with John Wood in the title role, ran for 471 performances on Broadway in 1974.