Page:Representative American plays.pdf/593

576 -- For this play he borrowed from La Plantation Thomasin, by Maurice Ordonneau, the idea of the trip to a tropical island, but the main plot and the central characters were original. After a successful career in this country, Mr. Gillette appeared as "Augustus Billings" in this play in London, at the Garrick Theatre, April 18, 1898. In the meantime he had produced Secret Service, and a very successful farce comedy, Because She Loved Him So, from the French play, Jalousie, of Bisson and Leclerq, played first in New Haven, October 28, 1898. After a "tryout" at Wilkes-Barre and Buffalo, Sherlock Holmes was first put on in New York City at the Garrick Theatre, November 6, 1899, and after touring this country, Mr. Gillette began a long run in the title role at the Lyceum Theatre in London, on September 9, 1901. He next appeared in a one-act play. The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, on March 23, 1905, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, and on September 13, 1905, at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, he played for the first time the character of "Dr. Carrington" in his comedy of Clarice. Returning to this country he toured in Clarice and then appeared at the Criterion Theatre, New York, October 19, 1908, in the character of "Maurice Brachard" in Samson, adapted by him from the French of Henri Bernstein. His last play, Electricity, produced first at the Park Theatre, Boston, September 26, 1910, was an attempt to make use of modern electrical devices in a farcical situation but was not successful. Other plays of Mr. Gillette of less significance are She (1887), Settled Out of Court (1892), Ninety Days (1893), The Red Owl (1907), That Little Affair of Boyd's (1908), Ticey (1908), The Robber (1909), Among Thieves (1909). Mr. Gillette has continued his career on the stage, taking part in the all-star revival of Diplomacy in 1914-15 and appearing in his own plays in 1915-16.

Secret Service was first performed at the Broad Street Theatre, Philadelphia, as The Secret Service, May 13, 1895. It was at first only moderately successful, but when it was put on at the Garrick Theatre, New York, October 5, 1896, Mr. Gillette appearing in the character of "Lewis Dumont" for the first time, it was a pronounced success. The play ran until March 6, 1897, when it was taken to Boston and afterward on tour. On May 15, 1897, Mr. Gillette made his first appearance on the London stage at the Adelphi Theatre in this play, at the beginning of a run which lasted till August 4. The play was acted by English companies afterward and a French version by Pierre Decourcelle was played at the Theatre de la Renaissance in Paris on October 2, 1897. During the season of 1915-16 Secret Service was revived with Mr. Gillette in the part of "Lewis Dumont." The exact number of performances up to the present day is 1791.

In Secret Service, Mr. Gillette carried to its highest point the conception of a cool, resourceful man of action. This same character appears in serious situations in Held by the Enemy and Sherlock Holmes, and in farcical situations in All the Comforts of Home and Too Much Johnson. It is the unifying quality in