Four hearts with brake and reverse

The play of Four hearts with brake and reverse this divided into 3 acts, so we are going to summarize each one of them.

Summary of act 1

We are in Madrid in the year 1960 and the play begins by presenting us with the setting in which the action will take place. It is the living room of a house decorated in a very ornate and luxurious way, as it belongs to the time. The first character to enter the scene is Emiliano, a postman who has been going around the house all day, waiting for someone to sign the certified letter that he must deliver.

Right after that, the women of the house service begin to appear, going from top to bottom very busy and implying that something important is about to happen in the house. Emiliano tries to find out what women know, but all his attempts are in vain.

An insurance salesman arrives at the house, whom Emiliano listens to. He tries to sell you a kind of "life insurance". Finally, putting together all the loose ends, Emiliano discovers that the great event that he was presenting was neither more nor less than

the inheritance that Ricardo would receive, the master of the house, after turning 60 years of age.

This same act presents us with a parallel plot, which takes place in the same house, in which Hortensia and Doctor Bremón They explain her problem regarding the fact that they cannot formalize her partner, because her husband had disappeared in a shipwreck, but had never been found and declared dead.

Emiliano, the postman, listens as Bremón tells the other inhabitants of the house that he has discovered a kind of salts that provided immortality to all who take them. Then Emiliano threatens them by saying that if they don't let him take the salts with them, he will tell the whole world his secret. That is why the postman, Ricardo, his girlfriend Valentina, Hortensia and Doctor Bremón take the salts.

Summary of Act 2

Act 2 begins with the 5 characters who have taken the potion, located in a lost pacific island, since they have declared themselves "voluntary shipwrecks". They decided to live with just what they were wearing on a desert island, in search of new adventures, since immortal life lacked all sorts of emotions. At this point in the play, the characters make a description of how hard it can be to never be able to die.

At this moment you can also see how monotonous life leads them to do real crazy things. This is the main reason why they decide live in seclusion on an island. Then some strange characters appear on the scene who make the protagonists pay to live on the island. This makes the viewer see that they are not really completely alone.

The strangest moment in this part of the play is that, among the collectors of the island, Heliodorus appears Hortensia's former husband who was shipwrecked and everyone had given him up for dead.

On the other hand, Doctor Bremón discovers some plants on the island that allow the body's tissues to rejuvenate, until they end their existence. That catches the attention of the group, because they see a glimpse of a solution to their immortality. All the characters, except the postman Emiliano, decide to take the new potion, in order to return to their normal mortal lives.

Summary of Act 3

Act 3 takes place several years later and introduces us to the daughter of Ricardo and Valentina, who is called Elisa, and also to her grandson, called Federico. The fact is that the potion they took continued to make the 4 protagonists younger and younger, who now turn out to be younger than their own children. Elisa begins to suffer from delusions because of the age difference that she has with her parents and this begins to degenerate into madness.

This scene deals solely with Elisa's delusions and Fernando's declaration of love to his grandmother Valentina, since, despite being many years apart, they seem the same age. Finally, the final bomb of the work arrives when Valentina, the rejuvenated grandmother, announces her pregnancy.

The characters in a play They are what make the plot move forward. In a play, the characters are even more essential, since, lacking a narrator, all the force falls on them and their dialogues. We present the characters of Four hearts with brake and reverse.

Main characters

These are the main characters of Four hearts with brake and reverse, without them the work could not continue:

• Valentine: She is Ricardo's wife and owner of the house where the first act takes place. The potion is drunk along with the other characters.
• Richard: He is Valentina's husband and a friend of the other characters, with whom he also takes the potions. In the first scene they are arguing about his inheritance.
• Doctor Bremon: It is Hortensia's partner, but they cannot be formalized as a marriage. He is another of the characters who take the potions.
• Hydrangea: He is Doctor Bremón's current partner, although she had previously been married to a man named Heliodoro who died in a shipwreck.
• Emiliano: He is the postman who is in the house when the previous characters decide to take the salts that will make them immortal. She takes advantage of the information she knows, to force them to be part of the plan.

Secondary characters

thanks to these secondary characters, the work gains depth and has access to create more parallel plots. They are not essential characters for the work to progress, but they are also very important so that the viewer can get into context.

• Heliodorus: He is the husband of Hortensia who was shipwrecked and it was believed, until the moment of his appearance, that he had died. It doesn't add much to the play, it just helps create a feeling of bewilderment among the main characters and the audience.
• Elise: She is the daughter of Valentina and Ricardo. She goes completely crazy because her parents seem younger than her, to the point of not taking it anymore and having serious delusions.
• Frederick: He is the grandson of Ricardo and Valentina, son of Elisa. He falls in love with her grandmother and in the last scene her pregnancy is announced, although at no time is it mentioned that her child is his. This will remain as a mystery to solve for the viewer.

Other characters

These are other characters that appear in the work and that have a punctual participation, helping the plot to develop:

• Oliver Meighan, Seaman 1st and Seaman 2nd: little transcendental characters who make an appearance in the second act.
• Catalina, Dona Luisa, Maria and Juana: maids of Mr. Ricardo (1st act).
• Elias Corujedo and Welcome Corujedo: They are the life insurance collectors. The first named is the grandfather of the second.
• florence: Mrs. Adela's maid.

Without a doubt, the main theme of Four hearts with brake and reverseit is immortality. This theme begins to be discussed in the first scenes of the play and continues throughout the other two acts. The most important reflection that the viewer should be left with is about death and the fear that it will come, instead of taking advantage of the life we ​​have.

In the second act, you can clearly see what the opinion of the characters is about immortality, once they have to deal with it. The protagonists claim that immortality is not a good thing and that the really beautiful thing about life is that one day it will come to an end and that is why it is valuable to make the most of it and live as many adventures as possible.

Being conditioned by the certainty that one day we will die, we humans have hopes, dreams and illusions, that if the factor of non-existence disappears, these disappear too.

In this work it also has a crucial weight love, that can be seen between the two couples in love who decide to take the potion together. Immortality also affects this aspect, since the daily routine affects couples, causing some small problems between spouses.

At the end of the play, the jealousy theme, through the strange relationship that Fernando has with her grandmother, due to the youth that she presents in her face and in her body.

Now you know the full summary of Four hearts with brake and reverse And what are their characters? If you are interested in continuing to learn more about this topic or something similar, do not hesitate to consult our reading section, where you can find the summary of many more books.