'While serving with the A.I.F. Dick Reynolds and his brother Tom both fall In love with the same girl and Dick is the successful suitor. A fortnight before his son Bobby Is born. Dick is killed in a German trench raid and his wife does not survive him many weeks. Bobby is taken to Australia where he is brought up by his grandmother and his aunt on Wallaroo, a Queensland sheep station, of which Tom is the manager. Molly Reynolds practically devotes her life to Bobby, while Tom also regards him more as a son than a nephew. By 1930 Tom has forgotten any bitterness he may have felt towards the Germans and believes in tolerance, forgiveness and the brotherhood of man.
'Consequently when Carl Eberhardt comes with his sister to Budgeree, the station adjoining Wallaroo, although Carl served in the German army during the war, Tom welcomes him as a neighbour. By a dramatic sequence of events, Tom recognises Carl as the German who killed Dick, but because he has believed in universal brotherhood, and has spoken so much of the need for tolerance and forgiveness, Tom keeps his secret to himself until he sees that Carl and his sister Molly are falling in love. He Is almost too late, however, for in attempting to arrest the affair before it goes too far, Tom tells his secret to the slayer of his brother. Molly has already promised to marry Carl. Molly overhears the conversation Between her brother and Carl, and both lovers are stunned by the cruelty of fate. Carl and Molly agree that in the circumstances they can never marry and Carl decides to leave the district, but before he can do so he loses his own life in saving the life of Bobby, the son of the man he killed.'
Source:
'And Two Shall Meet', Telegraph, 29 May 1933, p.8.
The earliest production traced so far was by the Toowoomba Repertory Society, on 27 May 1933: the play was performed under the title And Two Shall Meet, but newspaper reports indicated that Brotherhood, the title under which the play was subsequently performed, was the original title.
Producer: Myra Bulcock.
Subsequently produced in Brisbane by the Workers' Educational Association dramatic society, where it played in conjunction with George Landen Dann's one-act play The Giant.
