This is a play that is rather difficult to characterize. Nobody dies, but no one ends up happy. There is no "happily ever
after," but there is a "wiser ever after," we hope -- although at a heavy, heavy cost. The play opens when Adrian Terry, a gifted and succesful
playwright, is about to retire, at age 40 (forty), to spend the rest of his life with his loving and beautiful wife. From his point of view, theirs is the perfect
marriage and the perfect love. His best friend, Compton, said, however, that writers never write when they are happy and they are never happy if they don't write. They argue about Adrian's RIGHT to quit writing -- and when he ceases to write stage plays, he writes the script for his and his wife's life -- unsuccessfully. Her first love comes to visit. Her husband finds this out and scripts a meeting he hopes will end their relationship. It certainly ends his marriage. She opts for the REAL. Her husband's artificial world dissolves in tears. The only glimmer of hope is that one day he will realize his secretary loves him -- art, artifice and all, although he is blind even to that at the end of the play.