PlayNotes - Season 49, Issue 2 - Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure

Discussion Series

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sherlock

HannaH Cordes, Paula Vogel, anita stewart, and todd Brian BaCkus in a talkBaCk, Portland stage ComPany.

Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure By Steven Dietz

based on the original 1899 play by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Gillette

PlayNotes Season 49 Editorial Staff

Editor in Chief

Todd Brian Backus

Contributors

Audrey Erickson, Nick Hone, Moira O'Sullivan, Rachel Ropella, Liana SC & Thalia Wolff

Copy Editor

Adam Thibodeau

Cover Illustration

Cody Brackett

Portland Stage Company Educational Programs, like PlayNotes, are generously supported through the annual donations of hundreds of individuals and businesses, as well as special funding from:

The Onion Foundation

The Robert & Dorthy Goldberg Foundation Margaret E. Burnham Charitable Trust George & Cheryl Higgins Susie Konkel

Table of Contents

Letter from the Editors

Portland Stage's Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure About the Play

About the Characters

Interview with the Playwright: Steven Dietz

Interview with the Director: Kevin R. Free

Interview with the Props Coordinator: Everett O'Neil

The World of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure Innovation and Entertainment Afoot in Victorian London

La Vie Bo-who? Bohemia in Pop Culture: Then and Now

Glossary

Digging Deeper Sherlock's Fandom

The Meticulous Mind of Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A Sleuth in His Own Right?

From Crime Fiction to True Crime: Our Cultural Obsession with Playing Detective

Foil-ed Schemes: Character Archetypes & Relationships

Gillette and the Making of Ho(l)me(s)

Extras

Recommended Resources

Education and Outreach at PSC

Letter from the Editors

Dear PlayNotes Readers,

Welcome to the most mysterious edition of PlayNotes this season!

In this issue, we explore the world of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, Steven Dietz's adaptation of two original Sherlock stories, based on the original 1899 play by William Gillette and Arthur Conan Doyle. This play follows Sherlock and his right-hand-man Dr. Watson as they help the King of Bohemia avoid scandal before his wedding day. As clues pile up and things get complicated, Holmes finds himself face to face with both his fiercest rival and his greatest love. We explore the cultural impact of Holmes with the articles “Sherlock's Fandom” (p. 21), “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A Sleuth in His Own Right?” (p. 24), and “The Meticulous Mind of Sherlock Holmes” (p. 22). Been a while since you hung out in Victorian London? Head over to articles like “Sherlock Holmes: A Glossary” (pg. 18), “Innovation and Entertainment Afoot in Victorian London” (pg. 14) and "La Vie Bo-who? Bohemia in Pop Culture: Then and Now" (pg.16) where our contributors demystify some of the old-fashioned references. In “Foil-ed Schemes: Character Archetypes & Relationships” (p. 28), we provide more context for how the iconic characters in the play have come to be. This edition includes interviews with returning director Kevin R. Free (p. 10), and playwright Steven Dietz (p. 9) who give insight into the creative development of this production. We're also proud to introduce you to PS's new props coordinator Everett O'Neil who pulls back the curtain on some of the wild props used in the show (p. 12).

When compiling each issue of PlayNotes, we strive to provide articles and interviews that give you insight into what the process has been like behind the scenes (see articles in “Portland Stage’s Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure”), contain pertinent information about the play’s setting and major themes (“The World of Sherlock Holmes”), and provide deeper dives into specific subjects that compelled our literary department (“Digging Deeper”). We include a list of books, films, plays, and television shows that we hope audiences will access for more cultural content that relates to the play (“Recommended Resources”).

We are so thrilled to have you join us on this adventure and we hope these articles provide some fascinating clues along the way!

Sincerely yours,

The Portland Stage Literary Department Audrey Erickson Rachel Ropella Moira O’Sullivan Todd Brian Backus

About the Play

by Audrey Erickson

In 1893 London, audiences join Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson on two of the detective's most daring cases: “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Final Problem,” woven together in this play by Steven Dietz. The narrator of our story is Dr. John Watson, Sherlock’s assistant and only friend. After some time apart, the dynamic duo reunites in perfect time to take on a new client: the King of Bohemia, who needs Holmes to retrieve a compromising photograph from the mysterious diva, Irene Adler. As Sherlock investigates, he finds that he has met his match with Adler, who outsmarts him like few can. Holmes and Watson delve deeper and deeper into the mystery, and discover that Sherlock’s fiercest rival and the Napoleon of crime, Professor James Moriarty, is at its center. Professor Moriarty will not be caught, and Holmes's meddling will end with someone's life on the line…but whose?

As the threat of Moriarty looms closer and closer, Holmes and Watson team up with Irene Adler to obtain the King’s photograph and defeat Moriarty and his comedic cronies once and for all. The trio embarks on a European adventure, where Sherlock Holmes encounters a mystery unlike any he’s seen: a mystery of the heart. With Sherlock’s best friend, greatest love, and most formidable enemy coming together, this really could turn out to be his final adventure.

Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure is a thrilling romp in the best of ways. With the quick-thinking Sherlock Holmes and loyal Watson, we follow the clues of the case through disguises, daring chases, and desperate circumstances for Holmes, leading all the way to the iconic Reichenbach Falls. While many adaptations have taken a camp or comic look at Holmes, Dietz remains faithful to the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creating a production that is sure to delight those new to the consulting detective and well-versed fans alike.

Sherlock

dr. watson and sHerloCk Holmes HatCH a sCHeme in reHearsal for sHerloCk Holmes: tHe final adVenture. Brian lee HuynH (aea) & ezra Barnes (aea). PHoto By moira o'sulliVan.

About the Characters

by Audrey Erickson

Name: Ezra Barnes (AEA)

Character: Sherlock Holmes

The world’s only consulting detective. A sharp wit, sharper eye, and unpredictable nature. Always two steps ahead.

Name: Brian Lee Huynh (AEA)

Character: Dr. John Watson

The narrator of our story. A married medical doctor and Holmes's only friend. Loyal, brave, and eager to watch the mystery unfurl.

Name: Isabelle Van Vleet (AEA)

Character: Irene Adler

An excellent operatic diva, retired before her time. Beautiful, cunning, and in control. Recently wed to Godfrey Norton (or is she?).

Name: Tom Ford (AEA)

Character: Professor Moriarty

The Napoleon of crime. Sherlock’s intellectual equal. Extremely intelligent, immoral, and power-hungry. Determined to destroy anything that gets in his path.

holmeS:

Portland Stage’S Sherlock holmeS: the final adventure

Name: Laura Darrell (AEA)

Character: Madge Larrabee One of Moriarty’s henchmen. Relentless, nosy, and a (self-described) master of disguise. James Larrabee’s sister.

Name: Michael Grew (AEA)

Character: James Larrabee

One of Moriarty’s henchmen. A lawyer, swindler, and rakish criminal. Has accidentally found himself in love with Irene Adler.

Name:Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper (AEA)

Character: The King of Bohemia A roguish European nobleman. Ostentatious, rich, and planning a royal wedding. Trying very hard to follow along with the mystery.

Name: Zion Jang

Character: Sid Prince

Moriarty’s right-hand man. Full of street smarts, schemes, and the ghost of his friend Colvin. A guns and cudgels man.

Interview with the Playwright:Steven Dietz

Edited for Length and Clarity by Rachel Ropella

Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentice Rachel Ropella spoke with playwright Steven Dietz about his writing process and adapting Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure.

Rachel Ropella (RR): What was your first encounter with the stories of Sherlock Holmes?

Steven Dietz (SD): I was late in arriving at Sherlock Holmes. Though I had perhaps seen some television adaptations in my youth (I certainly remember the cap and pipe), I had never read any of the stories until I was approached about doing this adaptation. My friend and colleague David Ira Goldstein, with whom I had premiered many other plays, brought me the 1899 Doyle/Gillette play in hopes that I could update it. Reading that play sent me to read the two stories that now form the core of my adaptation: “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Final Problem.”

I then not only read the other stories, but shamelessly asked friends of mine who were lifelong Holmes fans what I should be certain to include in my play about the famous detective.

RR: During your career, you’ve written both original plays and adaptations from other sources. How does your approach differ in writing them? Do you have a preference of which you like to write more?

SD: I enjoy writing both adaptations and original plays, particularly because of the way each teaches me about the other. They are two sides of the same narrative experiment: in an adaptation, I am taking the existing story and writing “away” from it in order to find my own perspective on the material. In an original play, I am writing “toward” the story as I discover and invent it on my own. What’s more, there is a delicious challenge in trying to make one’s own language rise to the standard of, say, Conan Doyle or other authors I have adapted, including Bram Stoker or Ibsen.

RR: Was there anything unique that you encountered in the 1899 play?

SD: What was unique about the 1899 play is that it comes from an entirely different theatrical aesthetic, namely the “box set.” This was the dawn of the era of realism onstage, and so the travel and sweep of the story was narrowed down to a few realistic rooms in Gillette and Conan Doyle’s play. Much of my work was to free up the story to travel in time and space, in the same way the original stories do.

RR: Why do you think audiences are still enamored with the dynamic of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson?

SD: I think that in the end, the friendship between Holmes and Watson is bigger than any case they are working on. Try as they might, they will never quite “solve” each other. The mysteries within their friendship will resonate forever.

Steven Dietz, Playwright

Solving the Mystery of Directing with Kevin R. Free

Edited for Length and Clarity by Audrey Erickson

Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentice Audrey Erickson spoke with the director of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure , Kevin R. Free, about the challenges and exciting opportunities of staging the story of everyone’s favorite consulting detective.

Audrey Erickson (AE): We're about a week into rehearsals: exciting stuff happening! How are you feeling?

Kevin R. Free (KRF): I came in today feeling really energized about the work that we've done, I feel really happy to have staged the entire play. And one of the reasons I'm happy about that is because I also love to change everything. So I'm really happy about some of the changes that we're going to make, starting today. I think a lesson that I learn all the time is that you start off with an ensemble, and then that ensemble starts to expand as we add designers and an intimacy coordinator, or… like today, we added our fight choreographer. It's always a conversation about how to restart something that we've already started.

AE: You just spoke to how many different collaborators are in Sherlock Holmes , and the show has a lot of moving pieces. As a director, how do you see your role in bringing that all together?

KRF: I think, even if a production doesn't have a lot of moving parts, that our job as director nowadays (and during COVID times) is sort of honoring the places where people are, what they're bringing into the room. At the same time, I know that I also have to be the person who has the vision of the piece in mind. And it's really important to me that my vision of the piece not get in the way of the piece itself, or of the ways the actors want to create the world. It's also important for me to not allow the things that they want to create in the world to mess up the world that we're all trying to create together. I have to be very clear about

what the vision of the piece is, so that when people are adding things to the vision, to the piece, it fits in the vision. And how do I justify it? If it's not quite in the vision, how do we work it so that it really fits?

AE: Were you a Sherlock Holmes fan before starting this process? Did you have to kind of brush up on your Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? What was your process into the play?

KRF: I had to brush up. I mean, I guess I'm a fan. If you're a person who's just like, you just don't like Sherlock Holmes, like why, what? What reason would you have for just outand-out not liking Sherlock Holmes? I think, like everything in the world that has ever been made, [it] is probably steeped in some racism. It's probably steeped in some ableism. It's probably steeped in some homophobia. There's probably all of that stuff. But I think I'd be hard pressed to find anything that was created in the last century, or the century before, that isn't steeped in that. So it is our place to make sure that where we can, we are telling the story in a way that doesn't marginalize other people.

Director Kevin r. Free

Portland Stage’S Sherlock holmeS: the final adventure

I love Sherlock Holmes, and I've been reading stories and listening to podcasts and enjoying that, but also I've been watching the BBC Sherlock [2010-17]. I just love it so, so much. And it has helped to inform this production because I feel like everybody thinks they're a genius somehow, right? And that's what this play is about, how every single character thinks that they are some kind of genius. I think Watson is the only one that doesn't think he's a genius. Our Watson is a person who supports Sherlock, is looking at Sherlock. And we're going to look at places where Watson can be in the same place we are, in terms of watching the play.

AE: For you, what is the most exciting challenge of this play?

KRF: I've never directed a play that has this much violence in it, so I'm excited about that. [And] I have directed musicals that star children. Like I had a 20-person cast of The Wiz and a 15-person cast of Starlight Express. So I am used to directing traffic to a certain extent. This [production] is a big challenge, because I'm working with eight professional actors who all have ideas about how to make a play. I think my particular challenge, and this is also another thing that I think is important as a director, is that we're doing this play for a reason. We do what we do for a reason. Because we love what we do. So what I want is to make sure that everybody is loving what we're doing as we're doing it. If I don't like what we're doing with something, [if] it just feels like a chore to come to work, I need to figure out how to make it less of a chore. [Another] challenge is handling these large story arcs in this play, and honoring all the little details of those big story arcs. I'm really good at having a vision and flying above everything and looking down on it, and I am less good at details. So the greatest challenge for me is looking at the details to make sure that they fit into the wider story arcs of the play.

AE: You've been at Portland Stage a handful of times at this point. How has this process been different from directing here in the past? Has it been?

KRF: Yeah, well, this is the largest cast. The last time I was here was February, when I directed Last Ship to Proxima Centauri by Greg Lam. This time, it feels more difficult because it doesn't have the intense themes of race, or gender, culture. So it feels different because of that, but it also feels more like I get to do a thing that I never thought I'd do. I'm really excited about creating moments of suspense, about hiding things from an audience, and also letting the audience in on the joke.

AE: Do you have any Sherlock recommendations for the audience? I know you said you've been watching the BBC version.

KRF: I think the BBC version, I would say watch it all. It's interesting. Each season only has three episodes, but each episode is 90 minutes, really interesting. So I would say to watch all of those, but in particular, watch the final episode of season one [and] the final episode of season three. Those are the best ones. And then I've been watching this other one that I only watch like it's popcorn. It's like bubblegum. With Morgan Fairchild playing Irene Adler*. It's a series...and I don't know where it was. I don't know where it came from. It even looks like it's been colorized, but I know that it was in the 80s. So [it] hasn't been colorized, just the colors look fake. Yeah. Look for Morgan Fairchild as Irene Adler, and then you'll know what series I'm talking about. It's beautiful.

*Note: The second recommendation Kevin is referencing is the 1991 TV movie, Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady.

Interview with Props CoordinatorEverett O'Neil

Edited for Length and Clarity by Rachel Ropella

Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentice Rachel Ropella spoke with Portland Stage’s new props coordinator, Everett O’Neil, about the process of finding and creating props for Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure.

Rachel Ropella (RR): For those who don’t know, what’s the role of a props coordinator within a production?

Everett O'Neil (EO): Everything that an actor touches is considered a prop. Depending on whether it's a hand prop, or something else that falls under the props department, it’s my job to find or create them for the show.

RR: Once you knew you were props coordinator for Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, how did you start your process for it?

EO: First I read the play, and then I reread it over and over again to make a list of all the things that are mentioned. You also need to consider all the extra things a prop requires. For example, with Holmes's pipe, I have to think about the pipe itself, the tobacco for it, and a place where he puts the pipe on the set. All of that falls under props! It's a similar process for set dressing. The beginning of the second act of Sherlock takes place over breakfast. So I know that I would need to have plates, cups, and a teapot on the table, as well as food. Usually, what I do is I make a list of the item, and write down which character uses it, and what page of the script it's on. And so then moving forward, when you are finding props, you look at that list.

RR: It sounds like a lot of work for a prop that might be onstage for only a scene. How do you handle food props in Sherlock Holmes? Are we seeing real or fake food onstage?

EO: We're seeing fake food in this production because no one touches or eats it. But when you have real food onstage, it’s fresh for every show and you also have to make sure that if someone has a nut allergy or is vegan that the food works with their dietary restricions.

RR: You mentioned the term “hand prop.” How is a hand prop different from other props we see in the show?

EO: Well, a hand prop is anything that an actor picks up.That could be Sherlock’s pipe, a drinking glass, even a briefcase. Other props might be considered set dressing, such as lamps or books that are never picked up in the study.

RR: What's your favorite part of the process?

EO: I think it's the challenge of finding things, especially in Sherlock Holmes, which happens in 1893. I have to find things that are appropriate for that time period and if we can't find them, we have to make them in house. It means I get to ask exciting questions like: How do you make them? What is it made up of? What's it supposed to do?

o'neil worKS on a ProP bulletS caSe.

RR: What do you think is going to be one of the most complicated props for this production?

EO: Well, the electric light used in the gas chamber is a challenge because no one seems to know what it's supposed to look like. I'm envisioning, and what my research has shown me, is that it's a cylinder with a big lens in the front and you hold it from the back. And it's sort of like a flashlight, but the 1893 version of a flashlight, and it has to be electrified. I’m excited to work with our electrics team to figure it out and make it actually work.

RR: I know that paper props, like newspapers and letters, are something you’ve also been working on for Sherlock Holmes . How detailed are these props that our audiences briefly see?

EO: Our props apprentice, Maddie MacDonald, has been working on these letters while I research the London newspapers. For some, envelopes have been stuffed with scrap paper, but other, more visible letters, she writes it out in her best cursive. For the character of Irene Adler, we found this great floral stationery to differentiate it from a letter that Dr. Watson might write. You might just see a hint of the different stationery onstage, but even if only one audience member sees it, it’s worth it.

RR: When it comes to very specific props like letters or something that an actor uses a lot, how early on in a rehearsal do actors get to use them?

EO: We try to give actors as many props as we can for early rehearsals. For example, I just pulled five canes [from our stock], so the actor using the cane can get used to it. Oftentimes, we use what’s called a “doofer” for rehearsals. It’s a “do-for-now” that’s used in place of the actual prop. For example, we have these real wax cylinders used in the phonograph that get crushed in the play. Our doofer for the cylinders are cardboard toilet paper rolls so the actor can get used to crushing them without it being expensive.

RR: That is such a brilliant substitute, I’d have never thought of that! If you could take home one prop from this show, what would it be?

EO: Wow. I think it would be this electric light that we haven't figured out yet. I think that would be interesting to own because a lot of our props for this play were found, not made in house. It’s not like you could buy something like this online, it’ll be completely unique.

The World of Sherlock holmeS

ProPS aPPrentice MaDDie MacDonalD craFtS irene aDler'S weDDing bouquet

a victorian Street laMP PainteD to looK ageD.

Innovation and Entertainment Afoot in Victorian London

by Rachel Ropella

When you think of the phrase “Victorian London,” you might conjure up images of top hats, corsets, or even Sherlock Holmes smoking a pipe at 221B Baker Street. However, the Victorian era is more expansive than you might first think. Historians define the Victorian era in England as spanning the entire 63-year reign of Queen Victoria, starting in 1837 and concluding in 1901. During this period, the British Empire expanded considerably and became a global power through the new manufacturing processes of the Industrial Revolution and new forms of entertainment.

In Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure , we find ourselves near the very end of the Victorian era in 1893. London in the 1890s was a bustling metropolis, with narrow streets full of people, carts, and around 300,000 horses in use every day. Only the

wealthy could afford personal or private carriages, such as the one Mr. Norton calls for when he whisks Irene Adler to the church. When it came to transportation, London’s infrastructure boomed with the building of new railways, harbors, and a large underground train system, many of which provide the setting for Sherlock’s adventures.

Besides expanding London’s infrastructure, this era saw significant breakthroughs in the sciences. The publishing of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859 and the invention of the telephone in 1876 changed how the world thought and communicated. Many of these discoveries led writers, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to focus on using scientific evidence and reasoning for their characters to solve crimes. Crime fiction and detective stories grew quickly in popularity during the Victorian period. As the literacy

built in 1859, big ben becaMe a SyMbol oF victorian lonDon.

Did You Know?

The Sherlock Holmes Museum actually resides at 239 Baker Street, but requested special permission from the City of London to claim ownership of the famous address of 221B.

Wagner in Germany. During this time, famous opera singers and actresses such as Jenny Lind and Lillie Langtry held celebrity status akin to today’s pop stars, which is how Irene Adler is portrayed in Sherlock. Similar to Queen Victoria, these prima donnas had great influence over their adoring fans when it came to style and trends.

rate increased and England’s middle class developed during the Industrial Revolution, there was a new hunger for affordable entertainment. In London, penny dreadfuls were sold on the street as a way for the working class to read a serialized story for one penny. Focusing on grisly crime and violence, the penny dreadfuls created an audience of avid readers who enjoyed easyto-read mysteries, similar to how modern audiences love to binge-watch crime shows like Law & Order .

However, for the upper class, a trip to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden was more en vogue. The mid-to-late 19th century was also considered a golden age of opera, led by Giuseppe Verdi in Italy and Richard

With the Queen’s passing in 1901, the Victorian era ended, leaving behind a legacy of innovation and cultural achievements still enjoyed today. However, this legacy is a complicated one. It’s crucial to recognize that the British Empire’s wealth and power during this time was built on colonization and exploitation. While slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, the Victorian era relied on expanding their colonies in Africa to generate wealth and resources. This practice was also prevalent in India, which was forced under the rule of the British government from 1858 to 1947. In 1877, when Queen Victoria was declared the Empress of India, British imperialism reached what was considered to be its peak. This imperialism impacted daily life in London, as nationalism and the exoticism of the “East” became pervasive in books, art, and theater. Therefore, when we reflect on Sherlock Holmes’s London, we must remember that the British Empire was built on the backs of colonization, exploitation, and subjugation.

hungarian oPera houSe SiMilar to where irene aDler woulD have PerForMeD

La Vie Bo-who?

Bohemia in Pop Culture: Then and Now

by Nick Hone

For nearly all who hear it, the word “Bohemia” carries a certain meaning: carefree life, artistic liberation, and a departure from the constraints of a drab reality. In the words of Gelett Burgess, 19th century American journalist and self-proclaimed bohemian, “there are no roads in all Bohemia!” But where did this image of a wild, libertine playground come from, and when was the name Bohemia connected to it?

The term's name comes from the kingdom of Bohemia, a historical nation-state in central Europe that makes up most of what we now know as the Czech Republic. Situated between the Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, the kingdom’s land was sought after by both, making Bohemia’s history a politically tumultuous one.

In the 11th century, Bohemia was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire, a loose political confederation of German states. Like most nations within the Empire, it maintained a measure of its independence as a kingdom and a uniquely powerful voice in imperial politics. For several centuries, the throne of Bohemia was a gateway position to the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Though evidence for Bohemian proclivity towards hedonism is lacking, its people did have a rather interesting streak of rebellion. Beginning in the 15th century, Bohemia was the site of multiple

conflicts between early religious reformers, known as Hussites, and the Catholic Church. These tensions were only exacerbated when the Catholic Habsburgs ascended to the throne of the mostly Protestant Bohemia in 1526, leading eventually to open revolt in 1618. Though unable to stand against the might of the combined Habsburg nations of Spain, Austria, and the Holy Roman Empire, the Bohemian Protestants' refusal to cede power to the Catholic Church inspired resistance across Europe, and began the Thirty Years’ War. After the Bohemian revolutionaries were defeated in 1620, the fires of rebellion were suppressed and Bohemia was slowly stripped of its independent national identity. In the spring of 1848, Prague was the site of a bloody and failed revolution of Czech nationalists rising against Austrian domination. But is this tradition of resistance and revolution the reason our cultural image of bohemia is so carefree and wild?

Our modern concept of the bohemian lifestyle as hedonistic, drug-filled, art-obsessed, and poor comes from bigoted French assumptions about a different population altogether: the Romani. The Romani, or the Roma, are a nomadic minority group originating in northern India who began arriving in Europe around the 15th century. German nations expelled Romani families and groups soon after their arrival in Europe, and the Holy Roman Empire incentivized the murder of Roma by offering rewards for proof of death. In order to avoid persecution and death, the Roma moved around Europe, never staying in a single place for long. Due to the east-to-west migration of most Roma, French authorities generalized them as arriving from “Bohemia.” The Roma settled in the poorest areas of French cities, such as Paris’s Latin Quarter, and their neighbors were often emerging artists, sex workers, and criminals. “Bohemian” areas were considered dangerous, dirty, and lawless, mixing previous Romani stereotypes with new associations of loose morals and artistic inclinations.

BoHemia and moraVia,

As time went on, however, the upper classes began to co-opt what it meant to live a bohemian lifestyle. The association with artists and freedom from societal expectations led to the idea of Bohemia as a pseudo-mythical kingdom: a far-off place where the shackles of normal life have been cast off for the life of a passionate vagabond. Authors like Henri Murger began writing embellished stories of himself and his friends living romantically impoverished bohemian lifestyles, carousing about Paris with nothing but brightly colored coats, alcoholic tendencies, and a flair for the dramatic. Murger’s stories, titled “Scènes de la vie de Bohème” or simply, “La Vie de Bohème,” were adapted into a play of the same title and went on to find wide acclaim from its audiences. This same play was the inspiration for La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini, one of the most popular operas ever written; the success of the opera and its source material made them the inspiration for nearly every reference to bohemian culture in modern media. The prevalence of the mythic “Bohemia'' in western Europe in the late 19th century made it a

convenient setting for writers, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Choosing a Bohemian royal as the subject of a scandal, Conan Doyle capitalized on the upper class's fascination with the Czech province.

European stories of an artistic Bohemia, as well as immigrants and political refugees from the actual Bohemia, arrived in America in the later half of the 19th century. It was in New York City that the appeal of a “bohemian lifestyle” found a new audience: journalists. After reading work by authors like Murger, young, idealistic writers at newspapers in New York began self-describing as bohemian, styling themselves after the French auteurs who first began the trend. Over the next twenty-odd years, journalists and writers draped in facades of faux poverty and full of artistic fervor spread throughout American cities. Bohemian culture came to mean a decadent lifestyle of vice and hedonistic self-expression rather than poverty and disaffection. Indeed, these new American bohemians seemed to forget their geographic namesake and began hailing Bohemia as a mythic realm, a place where they were free from the constraints of society and traditional morality. As with most counterculture movements, bohemianism was co-opted and romanticized by those who had no reference for its origins, instead substituting their own assumptions and desires. “Bohemia” was lifted out of poor neighborhoods and found a new home in the parlors and salons of American high society.

king of BoHemia Costume design By sHireen unVala

Did You Know?

Sherlock Holmes is the first fictional character to receive an honorary fellowship from the Royal Society of Chemistry

Glossary

by Audrey Erickson

Antwerp: One of Belgium’s largest cities, known for its architecture, large seaport, and chocolatiers.

typically by men. In 1893, boutonnieres were still relatively new, having been deemed in vogue in formal and business wear by Vanity Fair in an 1889 column.

Carpathian: Referring to an area of land situated in the Carpathian Mountain range of central Europe. The approximately 1,000-mile mountain range stretches from the Czech Republic to Romania, where over half of the mountain range is located. The Carpathian region is highly populated with spruce trees, brown bears, wolves, and lynxes.

Aria: An aria is an operatic solo with accompaniment, composed to highlight the singer’s skill. Arias became particularly popular in the 18th and 19th century.

Asphyxiation: A state in which the body and brain are not receiving enough oxygen, which can lead to loss of consciousness, brain injury, or death. Chemical asphyxia involves inhaling gases other than atmospheric oxygen, which replace oxygen in the lungs and disrupts circulation to the brain and body.

The Baker Street Irregulars: A group of street urchins who appear in several of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. The group functions as Sherlock’s accomplices and intelligence agents who can "go everywhere and hear everything.”

Bohemia: A historical country in central Europe, now a region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia comprises most of the central and western portion of the Czech Republic, and has since 1993. In the late 1800s, Bohemia was a part of the Austrian Empire, but many Bohemians were unhappy with their rule, and different factions protested or rebelled for independence. After World War I, it was finally able to become an independent nation.

Boutonniere: Named for the French word for “buttonhole,” a boutonniere refers to a small arrangement of flowers worn on suit jackets,

Contessa: Italian word for “countess,” the wife or widow of an earl or count. Contessas are often characters in classic operas; most famous amongst them is the Contessa in The Marriage of Figaro.

The Continent: As the United Kingdom is an island, the British refer to European countries excluding Great Britain and Ireland as “the Continent” (i.e., Continental Europe).

Countenance: A facial appearance or expression.

Crescendo: The highest point of volume in a gradually increasing sound.

Cudgel: A short heavy club, used as a bluntforce weapon.

Floral bouttonniere

an aria FroM hanDel'S "rinalDo"

Cylinder (phonograph): The earliest medium for recording and reproducing sound distributed on a commercial level. The hollow cylinder had grooves that replicated music and recordings when placed in a phonograph. In the 1890s, cylinders were packaged in cardboard and made of hard wax.

Diva: The Italian word for goddess; in opera, it is closely associated with prima donna (a principal female singer) and describes a famous and revered female singer. The term did not evolve into its more contemporary usage describing a high-maintenance or dramatic woman until the early 20th century.

The Dock: At British trials, the accused stands on a small platform surrounded by a railing, called “the dock.”

Iodoform: A chemical compound first prepared in 1822. In 1880, iodoform’s antiseptic properties were discovered, and it became largely used in medicine to apply to wounds or to disinfect hands and instruments prior to surgery. The use of iodoform gradually decreased with medicinal advances.

La Scala: A historic opera house in Milan, Italy, called in Italian “Teatro alla Scala.” La Scala was opened in 1778 by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, and has had a reputation for prioritizing artistic exploration and producing lesser-known operatic works.

Livery: A special and identifiable uniform worn by servants, often specific to the house or estate for which they work.

Mrs. Hudson: A character in the Sherlock canon, Mrs. Hudson is the landlady of 221B Baker Street. She mostly appears in Conan Doyle’s stories through brief mentions and not much is known about her character, but she has a large impact on Sherlock’s story: in A Study in Scarlet, Mrs. Hudson refuses to rent the Baker Street home to Sherlock himself, forcing him to find Watson as a flatmate and starting an iconic friendship.

“My Boswell”: A reference to James Boswell, an 18th century author and lawyer. Boswell is best known for his biography of his friend and English author Samuel Johnson. The biography’s engaging writing and thoroughness comes from years of friendship with the English writer, allowing Boswell to observe and closely document his life.

Napoleon: Napoleon Bonaparte was a French emperor from 1804–1815, considered “one of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West.” His legacy is linked to both his political influence and his reputation as a military leader.

The World of Sherlock holmeS

naPoleon bonaParte thoMaS eDiSon with a PhonograPh cylinDer in 1877.

The World of Sherlock holmeS

Phonograph: One of the earliest models of a record player. While in development since the 1850s, the invention is most commonly credited to Thomas Edison in 1877 and was sold commercially in the following years with increasing popularity. Equipped with a stylus and some form of speaker or amplifier, the phonograph reads vibrations on a rotating cylinder (see cylinder).

Primer: An elementary textbook that serves as an introduction to a subject of study or is used for teaching children to read.

Rake: British slang and an archetypal character, a rake (short for “rakehell”) is an oftentimes charming man who lacks morality, and indulges in vices such as drinking, smoking, womanizing, and gambling.

Red rose (symbolism): The red rose most commonly symbolizes love and passion. Red roses paired with white roses symbolize a perfect match.

Surmise: To form an opinion or come to a conclusion without definite evidence.

Trowel: A small bladed tool with a handle. Trowels with curved blades are used in gardening, while trowels with flat curves are used to evenly spread mortar or concrete.

Reichenbach Falls: A waterfall cascade in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland. They drop over a total height of about 820 ft. At about 360 ft. sits the Grand Reichenbach Fall, which is the Fall’s longest segment and one of the tallest waterfalls in the Alps. Now a popular tourist destination, the Fall got its fame from Conan Doyle’s story “The Final Problem.”

St. Monica: A Catholic saint (331–ww387), patron of wives and abuse victims. While there are several churches that bear the name St. Monica in London, the one that appears in Sherlock is a fictional location.

White rose (symbolism): White roses most commonly symbolize loyalty, purity, and innocence. They can also symbolize eternal love and new beginnings.

Did You Know?

There have been arguments over whether Sherlock Holmes stories actually qualify as “detective stories” since they don’t give the reader all the information they need to solve the mysteries independently

reichenbach FallS

garDening trowel

Sherlock's Fandom

by Moira O'Sullivan

We’ve all had that one character we couldn’t get enough of (Michael Scott on The Office, anyone?) and maybe even took to the internet to express our outrage when they left a TV show. (I’m still not over McDreamy’s exit from Grey’s Anatomy, and don’t get me started on Daenerys on Game of Thrones.) Our obsession with fictional characters is nothing new these days, but the extent to which readers became attached to Sherlock Holmes in the late 19th century was unfathomable.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, though truly passionate about what he considered his more serious work like his historical novel Micah Clarke, became a smash hit with his short mysteries. Sherlock fans would line up at newsstands on the day The Strand published a new story; the monthly UK magazine would pay Conan Doyle handsomely for any Holmes content he could supply. The demand was so high that Conan Doyle started to regret having created the character in the first place. By 1893 he decided he wanted out of the Baker Street business and wrote "The Final Problem," which ends with Sherlock and Moriarty falling off a lethal cliff. He then wrote in his diary “Killed Holmes,” an unsentimental ending to a huge chapter of his career. He later said, “I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.”

The readers were not very understanding, and the twist ending was met with outrage. They mourned the detective by wearing black armbands in the streets for a month, and The Strand lost 20,000 subscribers in the blowback. Countless angry letters were sent to the magazine and the writer himself. The readers hassled Conan Doyle so much that years later, in 1901, he gave in and gave the people what they craved: more Holmes. He first published a prequel story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and in 1903 took it one step further and resurrected his old detective, explaining that unlike his nemesis Moriarty, he had never actually died in the fall. This was met with an overwhelmingly thrilled response from his fanbase.

Today, Sherlock’s fans might have taken to Twitter with an angry hashtag or posted a reaction video to Instagram after finishing "The Final Problem." Fan culture has become commonplace within our society, with fan clubs and online communities as well as giant conventions and fanfiction. We simply love to be obsessed. Not only that, but we continue to be obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. Beyond Conan Doyle’s books, we have adapted Holmes to tread the boards in the theater, appear in movies and TV, and even inspire new characters with a similar knack for observation. From William Gillette’s first portrayal of the detective on stage in 1899 to Robert Downey, Jr. in the 2009 film, to contemporary versions of the famous sleuth like BBC’s Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch or CBS’s Elementary with Jonny Lee Miller, we clearly cannot get enough. The character of a brilliant yet socially insensitive problem-solver has continued to be popular, as seen in the successes of Hugh Laurie in Fox’s House or Tony Shalhoub in USA’s Monk. The next generation is even getting in on the Sherlock mania with Millie Bobby Brown’s Enola Holmes, a recent Netflix movie (based on a young adult book series) that follows Sherlock’s younger sister as she solves mysteries. Wherever you look, there’s a little bit of Holmes still present and stirring conversation, whether Conan Doyle expected it or not.

Baker street tuBe station in london

The Meticulous Mind of Sherlock Holmes

by Moira O'Sullivan

Sherlock Holmes’s mind is one of the most admired and discussed of any fictional character, but what makes him so brilliant? How does he solve such complex mysteries without some kind of superpower? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle rooted his detective’s skills in something he knew well himself: science. As a man who studied to be a medical doctor and who read scientific journals for fun, Conan Doyle was fascinated by the rapidly evolving science of the late 1800s and drew upon new technical advancements for inspiration.

At the basis of all of Holmes’s techniques is the scientific method, or the systematic observation and measurement of data and the testing of hypotheses. A common misconception is that Holmes used deductive reasoning, but he actually used inductive reasoning. The difference is simple. Deductive reasoning forms a theory or hypothesis and uses observation to confirm whether it is right or wrong. Inductive reasoning begins with observations, looks for patterns among them, and then forms a hypothesis or theory from that information which would induce those patterns. Sherlock solves crimes by taking in the most minute details around the crime scene, recognizing patterns among the clues and then coming to a logical conclusion. In some of his stories, he even explains to Watson that his eyes are no better than anyone else’s, but most people only see, they do not observe. The awareness that Sherlock practices makes him so aware of his environment that he makes connections that others do not.

Beyond having keen observations, Sherlock is described as incredibly well-read and has a breadth of scientific knowledge from chemistry to botany to medicine, as well as cultural knowledge of the opera and literature. The brief time that Conan Doyle spent in medical school opened his eyes to cutting-edge

science and his mentor surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bell, actually inspired Sherlock’s attention to detail. Conan Doyle’s passion for reading is mirrored in Holmes, whose comprehension of such a variety of information improves his thinking and lends itself to creativity as he puts together the facts.

Many credit Holmes as popularizing forensic science in criminal investigations, quite a feat for a fictional character. He was an early believer in preserving crime scenes and carefully documenting everything about them. Before the 1890s, it wasn’t uncommon for people to walk all over or clean up the area as they didn’t think to gather evidence in the way we do today. There was no CSI back then! Sherlock utilized a lot of new technology in his investigations, most of which was not yet adopted in the UK or the US at the time when the stories were published. He first used fingerprints in the story The Sign of Four in 1890, though Scotland Yard did not use the technique until 1901. Similarly, he solves a mystery in “A Case of Identity” (published in 1891) by comparing the unique qualities of typewriters, matching suspicious printed letters to the machine owned by the culprit. In the US, the FBI did not form a documents department for this kind of analysis until

when Solving a Particularly coMPlex MyStery, one woulD See SherlocK SMoKing hiS PiPe while thinKing in Dietz'S aDaPtation, holMeS callS it a "three PiPe PriobleM."

1932. Conan Doyle called upon his medical experience in 1887’s A Study in Scarlet to expose a culprit by exploring blood testing. The method he describes of testing hemoglobin in blood stains predates the first two examples of reliable blood testing, the Uhlenhuth test created in 1900 and the Kastle-Meyer test created in 1903. A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock’s first story, also introduced a now iconic detective tool: the magnifying glass. Holmes was the first character in fiction to ever use a magnifying glass to inspect evidence.

It’s important to note that though Holmes was ahead of his time on some things, he was behind on others. For instance, he did not want to concern himself with the fact that the earth revolves around the sun. In A Study in Scarlet, he denounces the Copernican theory, exclaiming to Watson, “You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” Throughout his earlier stories, Holmes makes it very clear that he does not care to know about astronomy, but in later stories he makes a few references to the field, which shows that he gave in to learning, even if just a little. Holmes has no problem dismissing things he finds to be irrelevant due to his “brain attic” theory. Also

in A Study in Scarlet, he explains his analogy that the human brain is like an attic, empty until you fill it with furniture, or facts. The attic has a fixed capacity, he believes, and advises Watson to keep his attic uncluttered with facts that don’t help him do his job or live his life. For every important piece of information, an unimportant one must be tossed. Though we now know that the brain’s capacity is not actually fixed and can expand or contract depending on how one uses it, Holmes did have an inkling about how memories are retained and forgotten, a constant process throughout one’s life. He was definitely onto something.

The brilliance of Sherlock Holmes is multidimensional and to this day impresses even the most capable of detectives. Conan Doyle’s use of science, technology, and diverse information to bolster Holmes’s remarkable observational awareness makes the character unforgettable and inspiring to problem-solvers and critical thinkers to this day.

deteCtiiVe uses magnifying glass to insPeCt Bullet.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A Sleuth in His Own Right?

by Rachel Ropella

He wrote about Holmes using cutting-edge methods such as fingerprinting, long before they were used by the police in real life. The public took notice of Conan Doyle’s methods and observations through Holmes, and soon hundreds of people were sending the author letters: all asking him to help solve real-life mysteries and crimes. During his lifetime, he helped solve two cases.

Did You Know?

Doyle didn’t actually want to write about Sherlock, started plotting ways to kill him off as early as 1891, but kept him around for the paychecks as he was one of highest paid writers of his time

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a prolific British writer and physician, whose most notable work was the creation of the iconic detective Sherlock Holmes. While we best remember the stories he wrote about the adventures of Holmes and Dr. Watson, did you know that Conan Doyle helped solve mysteries in real life? It’s true! On September 1, 1907, The New York Times even wrote, “It looks as if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will eventually come to be considered an even greater detective than he made out Sherlock Holmes to be.”

Before becoming an author, Conan Doyle studied at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. The character of Holmes was even based on his old teacher, Dr. Joseph Bell, who was known for being able to deduce the occupations and recent activities of his patients through the skill of observation. Because of his background in medicine, Conan Doyle made the character of Sherlock Holmes a man of science and innovative forensic ideas.

The first case Conan Doyle solved was in 1906. British-Indian citizen George Edalji was in prison after being accused for the crime of animal cruelty in a small town in Staffordshire, England. He had written to Conan Doyle, asking the author to help prove his innocence. Conan Doyle expressed suspicions that there was racial prejudice at play, as well as a lack of evidence from the local police, and decided to meet the man. After meeting Edalji for the first time, Conan Doyle wrote that, “I had been delayed and he was passing the time by reading the paper. He held the paper so close to his eyes and rather sideways, proving not only a high degree of myopia but marked astigmatism. The idea of such a man scouring fields at night and assaulting cattle while avoiding the watching police was ludicrous to anyone.”

Sir arthur conan Doyle, author

The author’s clever initial observation led to a much deeper investigation that was then reported to The Daily Telegraph. Conan Doyle requested other papers to print the article and spread the news, which led to the public pressuring the police to reopen the case. When the case was evaluated once more, Edalji was proved innocent and pardoned—all of this happening because of how Edalji read a newspaper in front of the author when they first met!

The second case in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was involved was with a man named Oscar Slater. In 1908, Slater had been wrongly convicted of the robbery and murder of a Scottish spinster, Marion Gilchrist. A brooch had been stolen during the robbery that looked similar to a brooch Slater was trying to pawn in town that following week. The police soon realized that it was an entirely different brooch and a false lead, but despite the contradictory evidence and Slater’s alibi, he was still put to trial and wrongfully convicted. In 1912, Conan Doyle published The Case of Oscar Slater, which featured interviews, the circumstances of the crime, and inaccuracies within the trial. This book served as a plea for Slater to be pardoned and helped raise awareness to the greater United Kingdom of his situation. It took until 1927 to finally have the investigation reopened, but eventually, Oscar Slater was freed and pardoned through the efforts of multiple journalists, lawyers, and writers, including Conan Doyle. While Slater was finally freed, he had already served almost two decades of hard labor in prison before the retrial.

In The Case of Oscar Slater, Conan Doyle muses on the similarities between the two cases he became involved in. He wrote, “I cannot help in my own mind comparing the case of Oscar Slater with another, which I had occasion to examine—that of George Edalji… one cannot but feel the same burning sense of injustice over the matter.” Both men were victims of miscarriages of justice, Conan Doyle believed, in large part due to predjuices held by those leading the investgations. For Edalji, he had experienced prior harassment in his community due to his British-Indian heritage. As for Slater, due to his Jewish identity, there

had been blatant antisemitism used as rhetoric in the case against him. While it’s fun to picture Sir Arthur Conan Doyle solving cases with witty comments and keen observations like Sherlock Holmes, it’s important to note that he was also keenly aware of and shed light on how external factors contributed to these injustices.

Although Conan Doyle never took on another case in real life, his passion for crime and the pursuit of justice has left a lasting legacy. In 1903, he founded the Crimes Club, a private social club in London whose purpose was the discussion of criminology and detection, which still exists to this day. The forensic methods used in his short stories about Sherlock Holmes helped pioneer many practices that are now common in forensic science. While The New York Times may have been wrong about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle being known as a greater detective than Holmes, he did indeed become a sleuth in his own right.

Did You Know?

Sherlock Holmes stories didn’t become super popular until they went from full novels to single-serve short stories

From Crime Fiction to True Crime: Our Cultural Obsession with Playing Detective

by Audrey Erickson

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sold his first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, to The Strand Magazine in 1891 for just £25, he had no idea that the tales of his fictional detective would become an instant hit. But London loved Sherlock Holmes; in fact, the magazine’s circulation would increase by approximately 100,000 copies every time an issue was put out with Sherlock’s name. Conan Doyle was a prolific writer; over the course of his life, he published 10 books, 22 novels, and a staggering 204 short stories. In addition to his Sherlock stories, he wrote paranormal fiction, scientific articles, historical adventures, and a variety of other genres. So why, of all of his works, did the stories of Sherlock Holmes emerge as the author’s legacy? The answer may come from the genre itself.

There were a few reasons for the genre’s instant success at the time: the post-Industrial Revolution’s resultant population and crime increase; higher literacy rates that meant more papers in circulation and a larger readership for crime news; and the emergence of an organized police force, rather than the military units that had historically enforced law. Londoners were more aware of and fixated on crime than ever, and were seeing formalized detective work for the first time. Paired with the major political and societal shifts that followed the Industrial Revolution, crime fiction was fulfilling a need for the people of Victorian London: one for order amidst increasing chaos.

In the mid to late 1800s, more niches were emerging in the literary world, and writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins were taking advantage of the new readership with stories of detectives solving crimes. Crime fiction is a booming market now, but had just been created mere decades before Conan Doyle took pen to paper, in 1841. The Victorians took to the genre with such excitement that more and more stories began to emerge, popularized by crime stories in the highlycirculated penny dreadfuls, cheap publications that printed serialized stories in parts of 8 to 16 pages a week.

Storytelling has been one of the most consistent ways of communicating and building community for all of human history. As humans navigate their unpredictable lives, stories offer the ability to process and learn within a recognizable structure that feels safe and satisfying. In a Victorian London morbidly fixated on crime and seeking order, crime fiction stories like those of Sherlock Holmes become even more satisfying; there is mystery and intrigue, combined with the satisfaction of watching the facts come together into one logical conclusion. Behind all of the narrative set dressing is a series of direct causes and effects that the audience can see culminate into a rewarding end: the mystery solved, Sherlock saving the day, and Watson (and us) looking at the logic trail in wonder.

So, what happens when we seek that satisfying arc with a series of facts that aren’t rooted in fiction? As we slip further and further into the digital age, where we are constantly bombarded with details of crime in our news cycle and increasingly violent imagery, our desire to add structure through narrative has bled into the real world. And from this: true crime, a genre that explores real-life murders or kidnappings with creators seeking to assign narratives to the cases based on facts and theories.

21st Century inVestigation teCHniques.

True crime had been steadily gaining popularity for decades, spurred by works like Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood in 1966. But it really took off in modern day with the emergence of true crime podcasts. In the last 10 years, true crime media has become a cultural phenomenon, and a lucrative one at that. A multi-million dollar industry, various creatives—writers, podcasters, documentarians—have made careers off of outlining real-life crimes and proposing various theories as to what really happened. With instant hits like Serial, My Favorite Murder, and plenty more, we now have the ability to play detective ourselves, alongside a charismatic host, during our morning commutes.

amount of low-grade stress and fear into our day-to-day lives, and studies find that habitual true crime consumers experience more paranoia in their lives because of the violence they casually ingest.

In addition, true crime has the tendency to follow the tragic fates of white, often wealthy, women, and those cases often involve kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder. In actuality, white cisgender women are statistically the least likely to experience these extreme crimes. However, these true crime narratives center them as sympathetic victims and ignore the violence that befalls women of color, trans women, disabled women, and women from other marginalized communities. Many true crime stories emphasize the victim’s actions and behaviors in the name of constructing a narrative; this often cultivates a victim-blaming tone throughout the coverage of a crime, perpetuating a societal assumption that women are at fault for violence they experience and, in turn, potentially restraining their behavior.

Our collective crime obsession is an understandable one. Some psychologists have likened the true crime phenomenon to roller coasters or horror movies, in that they allow us to safely enjoy what are difficult emotions in our own lives: fear, disgust, horror, shock. Despite true crime’s mass appeal, the genre’s ethics have been a topic of debate over the lifespan of its popularity. While some cite true crime as a way of building street smarts and avoiding the horrific fates of the subjects of a true crime case, many have pointed out that true crime leans toward the sensationalist and only covers extremely violent cases that are overrepresented in media due to their shock value. This creates a skewed perception of how prevalent these tragic events are in the real world. As a result, we add an unnecessary

While it’s true that we get the same satisfaction of watching facts of a situation come together into a logical conclusion in true crime as crime fiction, it comes at the expense of exploiting the tragedies of real individuals and their loved ones. While early crime fiction often followed events that had happened years or even decades before, the increasing demand within the genre means that many creators are drawing from recent events or even ongoing investigations, as seen following the death of Gabby Petito, where both amateur and professional true crime creators were following the events of the case so closely as to impede police investigation.

Gabby Petito’s case also points to the most recent, and increasingly controversial, trend in crime media: true crime that turns back into crime fiction. A mere year after Gabby’s murder, a movie was announced based on the last days of her life. As the fictionalization of the story allows more artistic liberties and “character” development, many have been quick to point out the exploitative and insensitive nature of the project. With this fullcircle crime coverage, maybe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had it right all along: following the facts works best in fiction!

MoDern criMe Scene.

Foil-ed Schemes:

Character Archetypes & Relationships

by Thalia Wolff

In her book Fanfiction and the Author, media and cultural studies scholar Judith May Fathallah describes Sherlock Holmes as “the most-adapted character in British fiction.” She identifies the world and body of work Sir Arthur Conan Doyle constructed around Holmes as singularly influential in establishing tropes and archetypes commented on by entire genres of fiction and fandom for decades to come.

The central archetypes in Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure—the master detective and the trusted companion, the femme fatale and the archnemesis—each embody fundamental character tropes which speak to important, relatable aspects of our understanding of the human experience. These characters, so well-defined and thoroughly explored in the world of Sherlock, have a heavy influence over modern audiences’ understanding of characters and relationships in the genre of detective fiction and its inheritors, from film noir to modern legal dramas. A large part of what sets Doyle’s world apart is how he establishes characters who are distinct, yet understood through their relationships with one another: Sherlock could not be the character that he is without his relationships to others in his world. In Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, playwright Steven Dietz’s keen awareness of the interconnectedness of each of Doyle’s characters is a central component of the play’s riveting and entertaining nature.

Sherlock & Watson: Two Sides of the Same Victorian Coin

HOLMES. (Re: Watson.) You may say before this gentleman anything you would say to me […] It is both, or none.

Steven Dietz states in the introduction to Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure that the “fundamental task” of a playwright is “to make one’s characters necessary to each other.” In this context, it’s only natural that Dietz express gratitude to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose “most ingenious device” was to build

his popular mythos on “the enduring bedrock of friendship” between that most intrepid and co-necessary duo: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, the reader of situations and the writer of explanations. Sherlock, as a keen observer of the world around him, is able to detect and deduce all manner of lies, secrets, and hidden truths based on what seem like the tiniest of details. What seems wondrous to Watson appears staggeringly obvious to Sherlock, at least when it comes to solving mysteries. However, when it comes to matters of the heart, Dietz’s Sherlock is dumbfounded. He attributes his desire to save Adler from kidnapping or worse as an attempt to save himself from boredom, only realizing much later what Watson saw from the outset: it is love that drives his actions in this case.

It is not a coincidence that Dr. Watson should be the one to narrate Sherlock’s adventures. If Sherlock were the one to tell the story, his conclusions might be more challenging to grasp, as he only explains his deductions at length when his partner Watson suggests the workings of Sherlock’s mind may not be clear to an outside eye. In Watson’s desire to find and communicate a more thorough explanation for Sherlock’s deductions and behavior, he serves as ambassador to the audience, translating Sherlock’s quick wit into something more readable for those to whom the truth appears less “elementary” than Sherlock finds it to be.

Watson keeps Sherlock grounded and human, always looking out for his partner-in-crimesolving’s welfare. He encourages Sherlock to take precautions, and helps him get in touch with his feelings. Watson's heart balances out Sherlock's brain. In turn, Sherlock challenges Watson, keeps his life interesting, and looks out for his partner’s welfare even as he ignores his own. The result is a bond of trust and companionship that makes the two a perfect pair.

Sherlock & Adler: The Mysteries of Love

IRENE ADLER. And you must understand this: A woman may be courted and wed, captured and won … but she can, Mr. Holmes, never be solved.

Sherlock Holmes meets his match with the opera singer Irene Adler, whose sharp, cunning edge and air of feminine mystery evoke the now well-known trope in detective fiction of the femme fatale, which gained popularity in the noir subgenre. Adler doesn't kill anyone in The Final Adventure, and her intentions are, for the most part, pure: she seeks revenge against those who have wronged her. She does, however, share with other famous femmes fatales, such as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944) and Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction (1987), the trait of taking advantage of the assumptions men make about her on the basis of her femininity in order to gain the upper hand.

In her scenes with Sherlock, Adler is revealed to be his intellectual match, at times surprising him with her own observational prowess. She challenges him; night after night on their journey to the Continent, Sherlock engages in awkward discussions with Adler, skirting around the one topic he is afraid to confront: his romantic feelings. Sherlock’s difficulty in directly approaching this topic illuminates how his prioritization of crime-relevant knowledge over other, seemingly "superfluous" aspects of the human experience calls into question his ability to confront the broader world outside of his work. In her similarities to Sherlock, Adler contests his sense of superiority; in her differences, she reveals key limitations to his understanding of and approach to the world.

Sherlock & Moriarty: Consulting Detective and Conniving Criminal

WATSON. [T]he fight between the two men ended in a reeling fall over the edge, locked in each other’s arms […] A generation’s greatest criminal, and its foremost champion of law – together forever in the depths of […] that dreadful, watery abyss.

Professor James Moriarty, the criminal mastermind and archnemesis to Sherlock, is similar to the famous consulting detective in so many ways as to foster the resemblance uncanny and at times disturbing. A short story by Neil Gaiman, "A Study in Emerald," explores the dark implications of the professor and the detective's similar characteristics: how the two admire each other's work, how they chose their professions in the name of overcoming boredom, and how they deploy trusted underlings to do the grunt work while they supervise and scheme. In the BBC's Sherlock, Watson pins Moriarty as a "consulting criminal," echoing the syntax of Sherlock's own title to describe how he is one step removed from and above the typical lawand-order scene in London. In this manner, the presence of a figure such as Moriarty reveals the precarity of Sherlock's heroism: the only difference between the two seems to be their moral values. However, the source of Sherlock's personal sense of morality and righteousness is uncertain and at times unstable. How much would it take to push Sherlock over to the other side of the law? Is he moral out of principle, or did he see a niche and fill it? If small details of his upbringing had changed, how might his life have unfolded differently?

Just like Watson and Adler, Moriarty operates as a foil to Sherlock: revealing and implicitly commenting on fundamental elements of Sherlock's character through the way the pair's similarities and differences unfurl as their paths are pushed against one another. Though each individual explored in this article stands on their own, it is their interconnectedness that reveals the nuance in each role. In this way, characters are made necessary to one another, which enhances the irresistibly dramatic nature of Sherlock's world.

Gillette and the Making of Ho(l)me(s)

by Moira O'Sullivan

When we think of Sherlock Holmes, a specific image comes to mind: a deerstalker hat, a long cloak, and a curved pipe. However, this iconic image is never actually described in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work. In fact, its roots are in the theater, stemming from the mind of William Gillette, the first actor to ever play Holmes and the co-writer of the first stage adaptation in 1899. An actor, director, and playwright, Gillette was born and raised in Hartford, CT, next door to writer Mark Twain. He became entwined with the character of Sherlock for most of his career, appearing as Holmes 1,300 times over the course of 33 years.

The fruitful collaboration between Gillette and Conan Doyle dates back to 1897. Having written "The Final Problem" and ending the Sherlock series (or so he thought), Conan Doyle was looking for a way to make some money and decided to write a play depicting his famous sleuth. With added pressure to do so before a competing production hit the stage, Conan Doyle found himself frustrated writing for this new medium, so he turned to a Broadway producer friend for advice. His friend introduced him to Gillette, who was performing in a play on the West End and seemed like the perfect person to bring Holmes to life. After a generative meeting, Gillette took on the project and wrote his play, entitled simply Sherlock Holmes. It premiered at the Star Theater in Buffalo, NY, in October, 1899, and while not a huge hit with critics, it was incredibly wellreceived by audiences.

Gillette’s take on the character was a bit more arrogant and callous than in the books, and along with the costume we now know so well, he chose to use a curved pipe prop instead of the straight pipe mentioned in the books. He believed it would be easier to handle on stage and added to the development of his character’s physical behavior. Known for his conversational acting style, he was also responsible for writing Sherlock’s famous line to Watson, “Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow,” which led to the first film adaptation’s version of the line, “Elementary, my dear

Watson.” The phrase never actually appears in any of Conan Doyle’s writing. Conan Doyle was so pleased with Gillette’s work that they continued to collaborate, and he even used Gillette’s Holmes as the inspiration for the illustrations that accompanied his second round of writings beginning in 1901.

Gillette’s professional collaboration with Conan Doyle changed the trajectory of his career and his finances. Using his Sherlockian fortune, he built a 24-room stone castle on 184 acres of land in Haddam, CT, overlooking Long Island Sound. The clever design of his home was inspired by his creative, sneaky lifelong character. The medieval-looking castle sitting atop a mountain was outfitted with puzzle locks and secret passageways, as well as mirrors designed to allow Gillette to make surprise dramatic entrances and spy on his guests (including such celebrities as Calvin Coolidge and Albert Einstein). Now on display to the public, Gillette’s Castle is a popular tourist attraction and a Connecticut state park, with stunning views and hiking trails surrounding it. It brings in over 100,000 visitors a year.

william gillette, aCtor & PlaywrigHt

Recommended Resources by Editors

Sherlock Stories

"A Scandal in Bohemia" (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"The Final Problem" (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A Study In Scarlet (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"A Study in Emerald" (Neil Gaiman)

Plays

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Adapted by Tim Kelly)

The Game is Afoot (by Ken Ludwig)

TV Shows

Sherlock (BBC)

Elementary (CBS)

House, M.D.(FOX)

The Irregulars (Netflix)

Films

Enola Holmes (2020, Netflix)

Sherlock Holmes (2009, dir. Guy Richie)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011, dir. Guy Richie)

Travel

Gillette Castle, CT State Park (Connecticut)

The Sherlock Holmes Museum (London)

the caSt oF SherlocK holMeS: the Final aDventure in rehearSal at PortlanD Stage. zion Jang, toM ForD (aea) iSabelle van vleet (aea) & Michael grew (aea) Photo by Moira o'Sullivan.

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