Formally, Dear Brutus is a dramatic comedy. Complications are introduced in act 1, reversed in the magical woods in act 2, and resolved in act 3. Like Shakespeare and Keats before him, Barrie uses the myth of the magical midsummer night's dream to represent the abstract concept of love. No one can explain biologically why humans, like Mr. and Mrs. Coade, fall in love and stay in love over many years. No one can explain how human beings can be desperately in love with someone one moment, like Jack Purdie and Joanna Trout, and desperately at odds the next.

For some, "the course of true love" does not run smoothly. In act 3, Barrie appears to agree with Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream— "Lord, what fools these mortals be."

Barrie also uses the symbols of light and dark effectively. Lob's sitting room is almost constantly dark, and...