When the Sun Sets

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

A rather dismal play ending happily by the help of coincidence. Meg, a high spirited young girl, comes to live with her guardian, an old skipper, and his sailor servant, two crabbed old men whose misogynist humours are the comic relief of the play. Next door lives Allan Laidlaw, a young painter, and his wife who is 30 years older than he. Allan and Meg fall in love and at the end of Act II their passion is declared. In Act III. Meg is miserable, and the secret of her affair with Allan comes out. Mrs. Laidlaw is at first naturally bitter but afterwards pities the young people and proposes to take poison to leave the way open for their happiness. Her first husband, however, who was thought to be dead in the wilds of Africa, but actually had lived there with loss of memory for ten years, turns up in the nick of time; he had waited, hearing his wife had married again, and not wishing to interfere with her happiness, but now perceives it is time to intervene, and his wife who had always cherished his memory, goes back to him, and Allan and Meg are free to marry. A severe moralist might say that the young people were let off too lightly. There is nothing offensive in the play, however, either in action or dialogue; it is written in a simple and decorous way, and its effect is rather pretty. The simpleness sinfulness of the two lovers is sufficiently pointed out, though they do escape the penalty. Recommended for Licence, (Signed) G. S. Street.