Dear Brutus

By J.M. Barrie

1917. In a remote English village there are rumours of an enchanted wood. One of the inhabitants, a mysterious old man, invites eight strangers to stay. They all have something in common. When the wood miraculously appears the guests feel compelled to enter: what happens there has the power to change their lives forever...

A haunting drama of self-revelation from the writer of Peter Pan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Release date: Nov 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786824059

J.M. Barrie

J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie (1860--1937) was a novelist and playwright born and educated in Scotland. After moving to London, he authored several successful novels and plays. While there, Barrie befriended the Llewelyn Davies family and its five boys, and it was this friendship that inspired him to write about a boy with magical abilities, first in his adult novel The Little White Bird and then later in Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 play. Now an iconic character of children's literature, Peter Pan first appeared in book form in the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy, about the whimsical adventures of the eternal boy who could fly and his ordinary friend Wendy Darling.

Reviews for Dear Brutus

[devil_llama · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Strange and quirky play about a group of party goers that find themselves trapped in a special game played by their host. Sent out to find a mysterious traveling wood, they enter the wood and find themselves transformed. The play makes great use of imagery, and makes for wonderful reading, but I'm afraid the poetic stage directions would be lost in a staged production. Though I would love to see this performed by a talented troupe of actors, I would find myself sighing for the lyrical and mystical nature of the stage directions which could not come across simply from the way a set is designed. Perhaps this play is meant to be read more than performed.