Twin brothers, one secret, and a bullet that doesn't care about class.
Who drives the story
The twin who stays with his impoverished mother — warm, loyal, and steadily crushed by unemployment, prison, and pills. He dies holding the question of who got the better deal at birth.
The twin handed to a wealthy, childless couple; educated, gentle, and still drawn back to Mickey and Linda. He wears the locket of the mother he doesn't know is his.
A cleaning woman with too many mouths and one impossible choice. She gives away a son to keep the rest fed, swears silence on a Bible, and pays for the oath twice over.
Rich, childless, and ruthless in getting what she wants — then paranoid about the secret she engineered. She moves her family to bury the truth and comes apart as it resurfaces.
The girl both twins love, married to Mickey, drawn to Edward when Mickey shuts her out. Her affair lights the fuse for the ending.
A shadow who opens the play over the twins' bodies and stalks the story, singing of superstition and the devil. He keeps asking who, exactly, is to blame.
Also in the story
Mickey's older brother, the local criminal whose failed robbery drags Mickey into prison and wrecks his life.
How they are connected
Edward (Eddie) LyonsMickey Johnstone
The twin handed to a wealthy, childless couple; educated, gentle, and still drawn back to Mickey and Linda.
The twin handed to a wealthy, childless couple; educated, gentle, and still drawn back to Mickey and Linda.
The girl both twins love, married to Mickey, drawn to Edward when Mickey shuts her out.
Mickey's older brother, the local criminal whose failed robbery drags Mickey into prison and wrecks his life.
Go deeper
Class as destiny · Superstition and fate · The cost of secrets · Friendship across the divide
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
Open the summary