Dear Brutus

J.M. Barrie

The action is se in the handsome, wood-panelled drawing-room of an English country house, to which a group of guests have been invited by a mysterious gnome-like old man called Lob. It is midsummer night, and the guests compare him to Puck in old age. As in an Agatha Christie whodunit, none of the guests are quite sure why they have been invited. What have the sharp, middle-aged Mrs Dearth and her alcoholic husband, a snobbish young flapper, a thieving butler, a philandering husband, his wife and mistress and a sweet old buffer married to a sweet old lady got in common?

The answer is that they all feel they have taken a wrong turn in life and all want a second chance.

The garden outside the house is mysteriously replaced by a moonlit wood and, as the characters venture through the French windows, they stumble into a world of magic and confusion and unexpected possibilities. The snobbish flapper finds herself happily married to the butler, now a rich financier. The philanderer is now having an affair with his wife and it is his mistress who is jealous and the alcoholic Dearth finds that he is now a happy, healthy artist with a loving, much loved teen aged daughter.

As the characters return to reality in the third act Barrie poses profound questions about whether it is actually possible to change our lives or to change our characters.