ASF Study Materials for Sherlock Holmes adapted from William Gillette's play by Geoffrey Sherman Director Geoffrey Sherman Study materials written by Set Design James Wolk Susan Willis, ASF Dramaturg Costume Design Pamela Scofield [email protected] Lighting Design Travis McCale Contact ASF at: www.asf.net 1.800.841-4273 1 Sherlock Holmes adapted from William Gillette by Geoffrey Sherman Welcome to Sherlock Holmes We know Sherlock Holmes. He looks like Benedick Cumberbatch. Well, we know the latest in a long line of Sherlock Holmes incarnations, including here on the ASF stage an adaptation of the 1899 stage version penned and performed for 33 years Characters by William Gillette. But the original Sherlock at Edelweiss Lodge: Holmes—and he was an original—flowed Madge Larrabee criminals, the from the pen of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle James Larrabee } "Chetwoods" and famously into the monthly magazine Alice Faulkner, their captive The Strand in London between 1891 and John Forman, alias Judson, the 1893, captivating England, America, and butler, working with Holmes the world with his observational acumen Térèse, a maid and deductive reasoning. He once told his Sidney Prince, a safecracker friend, sidekick, and recorder of his cases, Sherlock Holmes, the detective Dr. Watson: "I am a brain, Watson, … The rest of me is a mere appendix." Not entirely Watson and Holmes in a Sidney Paget in Moriarty's office or the gas true, but at times not much of an exaggeration illustration for the original Strand series of stories chamber: either as we watch Holmes solve case after case Professor Moriarty, a villainous with thrilling perception and logic. The series mastermind encored in 1903, continuing to 1925. John, Moriarty's subordinate Holmes's stories had their own life in late Alfred Bassick, Moriarty's Victorian England—Holmes walked the streets lieutenant/organizer of his readers, wearing clothes like theirs, and Jim Craigin the culprits he pursued succumbed to the same Thomas Leary hitmen pressures others felt in Victorian life—money, "Lightfoot" McTague } power, and propriety. Some were weak, some were ruthless, but all were identified and almost Sherlock Holmes in Holmes's Baker Street flat all apprehended due to the ministrations of one revived for and in or Dr. Watson's consulting very clever man, Sherlock Holmes. And now the modern world room: he's on stage at ASF. Billy, Holmes's messenger boy Dr. Watson, Holmes's friend Mrs. Smeedley, Watson's client Reading Stories for the Play If you want to teach some Sherlock Parsons, Watson's servant Holmes stories before seeing the play, The William Gillette play that is the basis Count Von Stalburg realize that none directly give the plot of Geoffrey Sherman's adaptation was Sir Edward Leighton of this play, which Gillette invented. His written in 1898, when all the world premise uses pieces of two stories: thought its favorite detective was dead Setting: London • "The Final Problem" is the only early story in Time: early 1890s and gone, hurled over the Reichenbach Falls along with the criminal mastermind which Moriarty appears Moriarty. • "A Scandal in Bohemia" gives a bit of the Holmes first appeared in two novels (1887 play's ambience (the royalty) but not the and 1890) and then a series of 24 short female lead's nature or the plot stories for the Strand monthly magazine Reading these gives a glimpse of sources. from 1891-93. Good stories to watch Holmes detecting: In the last of these stories, "The Final • "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" Problem," Conan Doyle apparently killed • "Silver Blaze" off Holmes because he wanted to pursue • "The Red-Headed League" other novels and characters. • "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" (includes Gillette crafted his play from bits of the then Lestrade, the police detective) available stories but mostly from his sense of melodrama, the popular late Available online @ http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/ Victorian theatre form. authors/170/sir-arthur-conan-doyle/ in Adventures and Memoirs (Silver Blaze) 2 Sherlock Holmes adapted from William Gillette by Geoffrey Sherman Meet the Creator of Sherlock Holmes: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Today we know only about 10% of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's literary canon—the 56 short stories and 4 novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the first of which he began writing by 1886 and finally got accepted and published by late 1887. During his lifetime, A Conan Doyle Chronology Doyle considered the Holmes tales among the (ACD=Arthur Conan Doyle) the least of his artistic efforts, preferring his works • 1859: ACD born in Edinburgh, of historical fiction and his historical studies on Scotland to Catholic parents the Boer War and World War I. But Fame makes • 1876: after 8 years in Jesuit schools, ACD becomes a up its own mind, and Sherlock Holmes is now a medical student at Edinburgh permanent part of our cultural heritage. University Doyle was a late Victorian who trained as a • 1877: becomes surgeon's clerk physician but became a writer. Born in 1859, he to Prof. Joseph Bell, a major was too old to serve in the Boer War or World Sir Arthur Conan Doyle inspiration for Sherlock Holmes's War I, but used his medical expertise to purvey reasoning process • 1879: his first story published himself into a close knowledge of each conflict. "I intend to make an end of him. If I • 1880-82: gets medical degree, He believed in the promise and power of science, don't he'll make an end of me." serves as surgeon on steamers saw the urban consequences of the Industrial to the Arctic and West Africa Revolution with its slums, crime, and poverty, —Arthur Conan Doyle in 1893, coast believed in propriety and the gentlemanly code speaking about Sherlock Holmes • 1882: moves medical practice in of conduct but acknowledged the beast within Southsea, Portsmouth, England (as did many late Victorian authors; consider Dr. Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes • 1885: marries Louisa Hawkins Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or The Heart of Darkness), The Holmes saga began with two novels, A • 1886: begins first Sherlock Holmes and praised the British Empire. Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Sign of (SH) novel, A Study in Scarlet, Four (1889). Yet only when Conan Doyle published in 1887. Also becomes Raised in a Catholic family and educated began writing Holmes short stories for the interested in psychic studies in Catholic schools, Doyle later rejected new monthly magazine, The Strand, in • 1890: The Sign of the Four, organized religion and embraced the popular, 1891 did the character rocket to fame. second SH novel, published supposedly scientific spiritualist movements/ • : ACD an eye specialist in Doyle quickly tired of both the premise 1891 psychic studies of the 1890s and beyond, writing London. Begins to publish first and character, wanting more time for his six SH stories in The Strand 20 books substantiating claims of after-death historical fiction, but the publishers kept magazine; six more in 1892, communication and the validity of seances. raising his pay per story. He felt himself collected in The Adventures of Critics today have trouble joining the creator of sinking into the slough so many of Holmes' SH. the hyper-rational Holmes with the crusader for clients and culprits had succumbed to • 1893: ACD finishes a second set spiritualism, but as Sherlock Holmes observed, of SH stories by killing off SH so in the tales—the lure of money. Finally, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the in 1893 he took a ruthless and sudden he can do "more serious literary mind of man could invent" ("A Case of Identity"). work." course: he killed Holmes off, in fact • 1900: Unsuccessful run for Doyle was also active in public affairs— pitched him and his newly invented Parliament (also in 1906) twice running for Parliament—and championed arch-nemesis Prof. Moriarty off the • 1901: new SH novel, The Hound of public causes. He spoke widely, led committees, Reichenbach Falls to their deaths. the Baskervilles (set before SH's and backed organizations across London and When readers in 1893 began reading "The "death") published England. He debated whether to accept an Final Problem," they realized Dr. Watson • 1902: ACD accepts a knighthood offered knighthood in 1902 before complying. was mourning the death of his friend. The • 1903-4: more SH stories in The But he could never escape that one detective he Strand magazine, compiled as story includes Holmes's farewell note, The Return of SH in 1905 created; Sherlock Holmes proved indefatigable. and Watson pays tribute to "him whom • 1906: wife dies of TB; he then Not even Arthur Conan Doyle could do him in. I shall ever regard as the best and the re-marries wisest man whom I have ever known." All • 1908-25: sporadic SH stories London mourned; young clerks wore black • 1914: The Valley of Fear (last SH arm bands. A woman opened her protest novel) starts serialization letter to Doyle, "You brute!" The New York • 1925: The Case-Book of SH collection published Times wrote an obituary. But Doyle was unrelenting—until 1901, when he began writing two more novels and more stories after the Sherlock Holmes play's success. 3 Sherlock Holmes adapted from William Gillette by Geoffrey Sherman Meet the Original Sherlock Holmes According to the present incarnations a crime scene. He is CSI long before of Mr. Holmes—the BBC/WGBH's Sherlock CSI was invented and, in fact, forensic Holmes and CBS's Elementary—he's a moody, investigation is sometimes credited to crime-solving genius who lives in modern Holmes's approach. He studies minutiae London or New York.