New Play in Manhattan

Come Back, Little Sheba (by William Inge; produced by the Theatre Guild) tells of a couple, married for 20 years, who should never have married at all. Doc had gotten Lola into trouble; afterwards the baby died, and the sexy, good-natured, empty-headed girl turned into a shiftless housewife, her mind on men, her thoughts in the past. Doc wound up not a doctor, but a chiropractor, and (until Alcoholics Anonymous took over) a drunk. His career blighted, his emotions blunted, he half sleepwalks through life. Then, discovering that their college-girl boarder is turning, like Lola, into a slut, he goes on another drunken rampage.

The play tries hard to be honest, manages in places to be effective, has a fierce moment or two, as when at the end Doc clings for help, like a drowning man, to the wife who has made him drown. And as Lola and Doc, Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer prove a valiant acting team, bring a great deal that is human, perceptive, vivid to their roles.

But Come Back, Little Sheba is not a very good, or even a very interesting, play. It makes plain enough what it wants to do, but never actually does it, never communicates the awful internal bleeding of mismated lives, the blundering wastefulness of life itself. Possibly Lola is too shallow to allow of much probing. But the more complicated, frustrated Doc does need-to be probed. For one thing, is he the tragic victim of a single mistake, or a weak man almost bound to fail? Playwright Inge tends to substitute mere sympathy for insight, and to employ those little touches that, though meant to be telling, are just the worn small change of domestic drama. Too often, with a dull pen, he writes on tracing paper.

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