Play review – Dear Ruth” by Norman Krasna

Very slight but extremely sweet play, the kind of which sitcoms have made irrelevant, really – you can see them on the small screen. But of its kind it's well done, and you can see why it would have been so popular on Broadway during the war. The first act is the best, setting up a warm family environment – blustering dad, smart but loving mum, hot elder sister, feisty younger sister, handsome soldier – and they set up the initial situation, of the soldier having written to the younger sister thinking it’s the elder: a comic twist on They Knew What They Wanted (or Cyrano). But once that’s set up there’s not a lot more misunderstanding – everyone goes along with the deception because the soldier’s going overseas, there’s some minor complications when his sister turns up – but not a lot. It’s certainly not as intricate as say Bachelor Mother or Devil in Miss Jones or even the later John Loves Mary (I kept expecting another more complicating factor, eg his ex fiancée turns up or they become nationally famous) – but it does have a lot of charm.