The Soldier Boy

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is in effect a comic opera, with a note of tragedy which happily turns out all right. The scene is in France, though some of the characters have English names. In the prologue frank and Alain, two young French officers, are on the Aisne together. Frank makes Alain promise to give his last message to his mother, if he fails. There is an engagement and Frank is supposed to be killed. In Act I Alain goes to break the news and is at first taken for Frank, who owing to various circumstances has not been home for 15 years: also his mother is nearly blind. Alain is persuaded by an American correspondent to keep up the mistake for the sake of the mother's feelings. But he falls in love with Frank's sister; she finds out that he is not her brother, but of course they cannot marry without disclosing the fact and he has to consent to her betrothal to another. In the end, of course everything is put right by the real Frank turning up. The other characters, as well as the aforesaid American comedian are comic - his friend, another correspondent, an English duchess who had been an actress, two veterans, aristocratic and bourgeois, and so on. There is also the usual chorus of comic opera. As a matter of taste, I think that the present war and the supposed loss of an officer, even though he is not really lost, are mistaken themes for a play which is in the main comic, but I do not think it possible to interfere with that. The piece is free from vulgarity, and the business of the young man falling in love with his supposed sister is quite inoffensively managed, nor is there anything to hurt French susceptibilities. Recommended for licence. G. S. Street.