Come Back, Little Sheba (play)
| Come Back, Little Sheba | |
|---|---|
| Written by | William Inge |
| Date premiered | 1950 |
| Place premiered | Westport Country Playhouse |
Come Back, Little Sheba is a 1950 play by the American dramatist William Inge. The play was Inge's first, written while he was a teacher at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Set in the cramped, cluttered Midwestern house of Lola and Doc Delaney, the plot centers on how their life is disrupted by the presence of a boarder named Marie, a college art student with a strong lustful appetite.
Overweight and slovenly, the housebound middle-aged Lola engages in mild flirtations with the milkman and mailman, like the ingratiating coquette she once was. She sees in Marie herself at that age, and encourages her pursuit of wealthy Bruce and muscular Turk.
Doc, who ekes out a living as a chiropractor, was forced to abandon a promising career in medicine when he married a pregnant Lola. She subsequently lost the baby.
As a recovering alcoholic, Doc maintains a precarious sobriety by avoiding the past. For him, Marie represents the youth and opportunity he sacrificed, and his eventual realization that she is not as pure and perfect as he imagined sends him back to the bottle and a slow descent into unbridled rage. A forced hospitalization brings him back to sobriety and, with Marie now gone from his home to get married, a reconciliation with Lola.
The title refers to Lola's missing dog, who disappeared before the play's opening and remains gone throughout the story. While Lola hopes for the puppy's return throughout the play, calling "Come back, little Sheba" daily from the front door, by the play's end she faces reality and gives up on Sheba's return.
The play premiered at the Westport Country Playhouse. Presented by the Theatre Guild and directed by Daniel Mann, the first Broadway production premiered at the Booth Theatre on February 15, 1950, and ran 190 performances. The opening night cast included Shirley Booth as Lola, Sidney Blackmer as Doc, and Joan Lorring as Marie. Booth won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play and Blackmer won Best Actor.
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