Everyone wears a mask. Not a literal one, maybe, but a mask nonetheless: everyone plays a role in the comedy of life. Professor Paolino, the Man, hides an illicit love affair under his respectable demeanour. Mrs Perella, his lover, wears the mask of Virtue but is not really virtuous at all; while her husband, Captain Perella, the Beast, seems oblivious to it all. But chance and destiny rarely leave well enough alone, and a series of unexpected events will radically change the dynamics of the group. The result is a hilarious and poignant comedy, a brilliant satire of the hypocrisy of burgeois "respectability", in the unmistakable style of Luigi Pirandello.