The play itself is something of a murder mystery: A prodigal son returns unrecognised, after years abroad, to an inn run by his mother and sister. He does not announce himself in the hope of having the women see the brother and son in the stranger. His plan fills his wife with foreboding. Rightly so since the women have been feathering their nest by killing guests for their money. Since he is a stranger who clearly has money, it looks as if he may well become their next victim. We also see a mysterious elderly servant wandering wordlessly through a surreal landscape occupied by people giving vent to their darkest impulses. In short, this is a play that's just about as dark as it can get. The Misunderstanding, never lets up on its unrelentingly gloomy vision of humanity gone amuck. To understand the subtext underlying the eerie, murder at the inn mystery, you must go back to 1943 when the play was written. The Misunderstanding's mystery is how a large segment of a civilized country could abandon their humanity.