MICHAEL AND HIS LOST ANGEL. Mr. Henry Arthur Jones during his long career as a playwright wrote more than half a hun dred plays which may be roughly divided into three categories,— melodramas, comedies of manners and serious plays. Of the latter group 'Michael and His Lost Angel' is gener ally regarded by writers on modern drama as the most notable. This consensus of opinion is the more interesting in view of the fact that although on 15 Jan. 1896 the play received the rare distinction of a simultaneous production in London and New York, with Forbes-Robert son and Marion Terry in the principal roles in London and Henry Miller and Viola Allen in New York. It failed in both places, was with drawn in its second week and has never been revived. The two chief characters are familiar ones on the stage and especial favorites with Jones, namely, the priestly ascetic and the worldly siren. The opening scene is thor oughly effective. Michael Feversham, an aus tere young clergyman, has forced the erring daughter of his secretary to public confession of her sin in the church before all the towns people. When Audrie Lesden, a mysterious
and charming new parishioner, presently ap pears on the scene we are left in no doubt from the moment of her entrance that she is the temptress; her tempting, indeed, i3 so obvious, the fall of Michael so predestined, and the ex piation of his guilt by public confession so plainly foreshadowed in the first scene, that there are no surprises. A more serious defect is that the author fails to enlist the sympathy of his audience for either of his main charac ters. Michael remains a "holier than thou" prig with what the Freudians would call an "impurity and Audrie is so patently selfish and frivolous that only an actress of very great personal charm could make Mi chael's infatuation convincing.