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Sherlock Holmes
A play in three acts by Ouida Rathbone, based on the original stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Opened at the New Century Theatre, New York, October 30, 1953, and closed on October 31, 1953, after only three performances. Staged by Reginald Denham.
Cast of characters
| Dr. John Watson | Jack Raine |
| Sherlock Holmes | Basil Rathbone |
| Mrs. Hudson | Elwyn Harvey |
| Rt. Hon. Trelawney Hope | John Dodsworth |
| Arthur Cadogan West | Richard Wendley |
| Lady Hope | Eileen Peel |
| Eduardo Lucas | Gregory Morton |
| Anna | Margit Forssgren |
| Count Louis De Rothiere | Chester Stratton |
| Irene Adler | Jarmila Novotna |
| Walker | Terence Kilburn |
| Lestrade | Bryan Herbert |
| Miss Alice Dunbar | Mary Orr |
| Andrew | Evan Thomas |
| Professor Moriarty | Thomas Gomez |
| Hugo Oberstein | Martin Brandt |
| Captain Von Herling | Ludwig Roth |
| Prince Bulganin | St. John Phillipe |
| Gregson | Arthur N. Stenning |
| Villard | Alfred A. Hesse |
| Act I | ||
| Scene 1 — | 221 Baker Street, London, one evening in March, 1895 | |
| Scene 2 — | 16 Godolphin Square, the same night | |
| Scene 3 — | A dressing Room at Queen's Hall, the same night | |
| Act II | ||
| Scene 1 — | 221 Baker Street, the same night | |
| Scene 2 — | 13 Caulfield Gardens, early the following morning | |
| Scene 3 — | A chalet overlooking the Reichenbach Falls, three days later | |
| Act III | The chalet overlooking the Reichenbach Falls, two months later | |
| "Not William Gillette's famous old warhorse, but a new pastiche of
Holmes material concerned chiefly with the theft of the Bruce-Partington
submarine plans. After bouncing all over London, the play shifts to the Swiss
chalet of Professor Moriarty, with Holmes and the professor vanishing in the
locked-together death plunge from which Holmes had later, by popular demand, to
be restored to life. In the present case, the plunge hardly mattered, since
Holmes was scarcely alive to begin with." [from The Best Plays of 1953-54, ed. by Louis Kronenberger (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1954), page 315.] |
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 Rathbone with Thomas Gomez |
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 Rathbone with Terry Kilburn |
Trivia: Terry Kilburn played Billy in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."
"Like old soldiers, Conan Doyle's hero never really dies, though his return in this instance was providentially brief. It described in terms that alternated between seriousness and spoof how he protected England and the delicate balance of European power by recovering the Bruce-Partington submarine plans after they had been stolen from a distraught government employee by an international agent and had found their way (naturally) into the hands of Professor Moriarty. Ouida Rathbone's prolix script, which incorporated sections of several of the original stories, took Holmes from his Baker Street diggings to Moriarty's chalet where the adversaries staged their famous struggle on the brink of the Reichenbach Falls and where Holmes made his return in a disguise that fooled all but the wily professor and adult members of the audience.
Handsomely mounted, although too intricately staged, the production had the benefit of such performers as the master himself (and husband of the playwright), Basil Rathbone; Jarmila Novotna, who was a hansome Irene Adler and Thomas Gomez as the master criminal.
As all the critics remarked, it would have been nice to have had Holmes back
under more fortunate circumstances; and as one of them pointed out, it would
have been even more fortunate had it been possible to revive Doyle to do the
script."
[review in Theatre Arts, January 1954, page 17]
