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Come Back, Little Sheba
Drama / Characters: 8 male, 3 female
Scenery: Interior
William Inge burst upon the theatrical scene with this story of marital frustration which erupts in violence. Doc and Lola had an indiscreet affair and she became pregnant. Compelled to marry her, he gave up his medical studies, forfeited his future, and settled down to a life of quiet desperation with this simple, homey woman, who lost the child but has remained Doc's steadfast if slatternly wife. Now a chiropractor and recovering alcoholic, Doc's sobriety is tested when Marie, a young college student, becomes their boarder and brings new life and long-dormant hostilities to the surface of Doc and Lola's troubled marriage. Shirley Booth won the Tony, NY Drama Critics Award and later the Oscar as Best Actress of The Year for her compelling performance as Lola.
94 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
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About the author
William Inge
59 books43 followersDramas of American playwright William Motter Inge explored the expectations and fears of small-town Midwesterners; his play
Picnic
(1953) won a Pulitzer Prize.
Works of this novelist typically feature solitary protagonists, encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, Broadway produced a memorable string. Inge rooted his portraits of life and settings in the heartland.
Works of this novelist typically feature solitary protagonists, encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, Broadway produced a memorable string. Inge rooted his portraits of life and settings in the heartland.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 12, 2025
Remember the first time you kissed me? You were scared as a young girl. You trembled so. We’d been going together almost a year. And you’d always been so shy. That night, for the first time, you grabbed me and kissed me. There was tears in your eyes, Doc. You said you’d love me forever and ever. Remember? You said if I didn’t marry you, you just wanted to die. I remember because it scared me to have anybody say anything like that.
Come Back Little Sheba ~~~ William Inge
Time has not been kind to William Inge.
During the 1950s, Inge belonged to the sacred triumvirate of American dramatists, the other two being Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller . In fact, Inge was far more successful commercially in the 1950s than Miller. His string of hits, Picnic, Bus Stop, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and Come Back, Little Sheba were all turned into major Hollywood productions staring the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, Rosalind Russell, Kim Novak, William Holden, and Robert Preston. So successful was Inge that by 1962 he had won both a Pulitzer and an Academy Award for Splendor in the Grass.. His longtime friend and mentor, Williams, was envious of his success.
A year later, 1963, Inge’s luck had changed. He was never to have another success in his lifetime.
Like Williams, Inge fell out of favor with critics. As criticism of his work intensified, also like Williams, Inge desperately struggled to please those critics by modernizing his writing. Sadly, his characters lost their authentic voices, and neither critics nor audiences found his later work believable.
Through it all, Inge struggled with alcoholism and homosexuality. He was deeply ashamed of both. One night, in 1973, he went into his garage, shut the door of his car, and turned the key. At the age of 60, life had become too unbearable for William Inge ~~ he ended the pain by suicide due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Today, Inge is mostly forgotten ~~ a relic of the past ~~ whose writing is viewed as dated …
Unfortunately, Inge is now viewed as a minor playwright, largely forgotten. At the peak of his powers, Inge was a great fucking playwright.
The plot of Come Back, Little Sheba is simple enough. Twenty some years after an unintended pregnancy forced the Delaneys to abandon their individual ambitions and enter into a loveless marriage, Doc, a recovering alcoholic, and Lola, his affection-starved wife, have settled into a numb routine that enables them to coexist from one day to the next. But when Marie, a vibrant young college student rents a room from the couple, their home is suddenly inhabited by the ghosts of their own failings. In every Inge play there is always a contaminant that triggers what is to come, and in Come Back, Little Sheba, Marie is the contaminant.
There is a forth unseen character throughout the play. The missing Sheba is both a real and a symbolic dog. She disappeared a few months back but her owner, Lola, is pining for more than her pet: like Sheba, Lola’s youth, pretty face and figure have all vanished, along with hopes that she can be attractive to her husband Doc. His nickname is a misnomer ~~ an unhappy reminder that, twenty years ago, Doc had to give up his medical studies, when he got Lola pregnant; her father’s stern disapproval meant a shotgun wedding. Lola lost Doc’s baby and couldn’t have another; the childless Delaneys now have little in common except regret. Doc, a recovering alcoholic, makes a living ~~ not much of a living ~~ as a chiropractor. Lola and he take in a boarder. With her boyfriends and a life ahead of her, Marie is an increasingly troubling reminder to the older couple of what life might have been.
As I stated earlier, Inge was the most popular of playwrights during the 1950s: he wrote scripts filled with genuine pain and tragic characters that could have been timeless, but he also padded the shows with stereotypical comedy, dime-store psychological insights and screechingly obvious symbols.
Lola is brilliantly written ~~ the slovenly midwestern wife of an angry alcoholic, Lola is written with heart-shattering sensitivity with a kind of infuriating simplicity that makes her a chattering magpie that you feel sorry for, but want to flee from as soon as possible. At her heart, Lola is like a little girl who has lost something and, indeed, she has. your heart bleeds for Lola as she keeps shouting out the phrase come back, Little Sheba.
There’s an arresting contrast between Lola’s shuffling around in her old chenille robe and her odd spurts of physical dynamism. Lola doesn’t get many domestic chores done or meals cooked. Later on, she vividly expresses ~~ in an impromptu, exuberant Charleston ~~ how good the twenty-year-old Lola might have looked doing the dance. In these moments, Lola conveys loud and clear that there’s lots to do and no time to waste ~~ there’s not enough in her life to keep her busy and she can’t do even that. Lola’s chattering attempts to be positive make her all the more annoying to her husband. Lola ha a radiant, exhausting eagerness to please and inability to know when to keep quiet.
Doc lives live with a hollow cheerfulness of a recovering alcoholic whose recovery isn’t all that solid and lets us see how a lot of seemingly trivial incidents ~~ and several big dark secrets from the past ~~ drive him back to the bottle with horrifying results. Inge, a lifelong alcoholic himself, understood all too well what he was writing.
A standard prop in Inge's play is the phallic stud, not that bright, whom all the women adore. Here, it's Turk, who triggers the tragedy that befalls Doc as Turk shatters Doc’s image of Marie as a virginal princess.
While times have changed since 1950 ~~ most married women today may find it hard to empathize with Lola ~~ but one thing that hasn’t changed is middle-age malaise and the realization that our best years are behind us. We may not find ourselves calling for Sheba in the middle of the night, but like Lola, we can’t avoid looking back ~~ this is what Inge brilliantly conveys ~~ without a measure of nostalgia and regret.
Come Back Little Sheba ~~~ William Inge
Time has not been kind to William Inge.
During the 1950s, Inge belonged to the sacred triumvirate of American dramatists, the other two being Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller . In fact, Inge was far more successful commercially in the 1950s than Miller. His string of hits, Picnic, Bus Stop, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and Come Back, Little Sheba were all turned into major Hollywood productions staring the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, Rosalind Russell, Kim Novak, William Holden, and Robert Preston. So successful was Inge that by 1962 he had won both a Pulitzer and an Academy Award for Splendor in the Grass.. His longtime friend and mentor, Williams, was envious of his success.
A year later, 1963, Inge’s luck had changed. He was never to have another success in his lifetime.
Like Williams, Inge fell out of favor with critics. As criticism of his work intensified, also like Williams, Inge desperately struggled to please those critics by modernizing his writing. Sadly, his characters lost their authentic voices, and neither critics nor audiences found his later work believable.
Through it all, Inge struggled with alcoholism and homosexuality. He was deeply ashamed of both. One night, in 1973, he went into his garage, shut the door of his car, and turned the key. At the age of 60, life had become too unbearable for William Inge ~~ he ended the pain by suicide due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Today, Inge is mostly forgotten ~~ a relic of the past ~~ whose writing is viewed as dated …
Unfortunately, Inge is now viewed as a minor playwright, largely forgotten. At the peak of his powers, Inge was a great fucking playwright.
The plot of Come Back, Little Sheba is simple enough. Twenty some years after an unintended pregnancy forced the Delaneys to abandon their individual ambitions and enter into a loveless marriage, Doc, a recovering alcoholic, and Lola, his affection-starved wife, have settled into a numb routine that enables them to coexist from one day to the next. But when Marie, a vibrant young college student rents a room from the couple, their home is suddenly inhabited by the ghosts of their own failings. In every Inge play there is always a contaminant that triggers what is to come, and in Come Back, Little Sheba, Marie is the contaminant.
There is a forth unseen character throughout the play. The missing Sheba is both a real and a symbolic dog. She disappeared a few months back but her owner, Lola, is pining for more than her pet: like Sheba, Lola’s youth, pretty face and figure have all vanished, along with hopes that she can be attractive to her husband Doc. His nickname is a misnomer ~~ an unhappy reminder that, twenty years ago, Doc had to give up his medical studies, when he got Lola pregnant; her father’s stern disapproval meant a shotgun wedding. Lola lost Doc’s baby and couldn’t have another; the childless Delaneys now have little in common except regret. Doc, a recovering alcoholic, makes a living ~~ not much of a living ~~ as a chiropractor. Lola and he take in a boarder. With her boyfriends and a life ahead of her, Marie is an increasingly troubling reminder to the older couple of what life might have been.
As I stated earlier, Inge was the most popular of playwrights during the 1950s: he wrote scripts filled with genuine pain and tragic characters that could have been timeless, but he also padded the shows with stereotypical comedy, dime-store psychological insights and screechingly obvious symbols.
Lola is brilliantly written ~~ the slovenly midwestern wife of an angry alcoholic, Lola is written with heart-shattering sensitivity with a kind of infuriating simplicity that makes her a chattering magpie that you feel sorry for, but want to flee from as soon as possible. At her heart, Lola is like a little girl who has lost something and, indeed, she has. your heart bleeds for Lola as she keeps shouting out the phrase come back, Little Sheba.
There’s an arresting contrast between Lola’s shuffling around in her old chenille robe and her odd spurts of physical dynamism. Lola doesn’t get many domestic chores done or meals cooked. Later on, she vividly expresses ~~ in an impromptu, exuberant Charleston ~~ how good the twenty-year-old Lola might have looked doing the dance. In these moments, Lola conveys loud and clear that there’s lots to do and no time to waste ~~ there’s not enough in her life to keep her busy and she can’t do even that. Lola’s chattering attempts to be positive make her all the more annoying to her husband. Lola ha a radiant, exhausting eagerness to please and inability to know when to keep quiet.
Doc lives live with a hollow cheerfulness of a recovering alcoholic whose recovery isn’t all that solid and lets us see how a lot of seemingly trivial incidents ~~ and several big dark secrets from the past ~~ drive him back to the bottle with horrifying results. Inge, a lifelong alcoholic himself, understood all too well what he was writing.
A standard prop in Inge's play is the phallic stud, not that bright, whom all the women adore. Here, it's Turk, who triggers the tragedy that befalls Doc as Turk shatters Doc’s image of Marie as a virginal princess.
While times have changed since 1950 ~~ most married women today may find it hard to empathize with Lola ~~ but one thing that hasn’t changed is middle-age malaise and the realization that our best years are behind us. We may not find ourselves calling for Sheba in the middle of the night, but like Lola, we can’t avoid looking back ~~ this is what Inge brilliantly conveys ~~ without a measure of nostalgia and regret.
February 5, 2019
When looking up my next read on my Kindle, William Ingle's Bus Stop was highlighted. I have several William Ingle plays on my list and "Come Back, Little Sheba", ( Orginally produced September 12, 1949 at Westport Country Playhouse, Westport, Connecticut, Shirley Booth, Joan Lorring amd Sidney Blackmer; The Theatre Guild at the Booth Theatre, NYC, on February 15, 1950.) was calling me to read it now. I had seen Shirley Booth, Burt Lancaster and Terry Moore in the 1952 movie. I love to find books/plays from movies that I have seen and read the written words. I still can see the movie in my mind and having seen it several times over the years. It has been over 15 years since I seen it last but it always had an effect on me. The play is pretty close to the movie but what makes this a spectacular read is the author's directions and thoughts of the characters. I saw this in my 30's but I just say that as one grows older you see the beauty of understanding of human nature that Ingle portrays which is so profound and poignant which a younger self does not appreciate as much. Does that mean a younger person would not understand? Not in the least, young people understand feelings and would see the issues for the couple here but with age there is experience which gives that view color.
After reading I come away with just reading something really great; I give all my reads I enjoy 5 stars, (I hate to classify otherwise) but this is not just a Favorite but an Ultimate Favorite and it will join others in that shelf.
The couple take in a young border who they center their hopes, dreams, fantasies on instead of their disappointed lives. Both middle age husband and wife had lost somethings over the years, keeping these thoughts to themselves. The lost dreams of the husband who had to marry young and forgo his education, only to be found unnecessary but too late. He sees things as pure and looks at the young girl as all that. The wife having nothing to occupy her time and no desire to be productive; she is starved for affection and love. She sees the young girl's boyfriends and dreams too! Both husband and wife's thoughts of the unreal are shattered to reality. Add alcoholism to the story and you have something quite raw with such a feeling of reality. Even though I knew the story, it did not lessen my enjoyment on this extremely sad but yes, happy read.
The point of having Sheba; the dog who lost and has not come back. The woman calls for little Sheba and loved in the past not wanting go forward. A loneliness and wanting something gone.
It is easy to give advice to keep busy as a neighbor has recommended to our lost friend but some good souls can not see the human suffering which makes this impossible at times.
The author had several thoughts which he shared in another edition, I read which has my notes and highlights. Look under my William Ingle shelf, if interested. I will quote below.
"The experience of my first production on Broadway was frantic and bewildering. The play was Come Back, Little Sheba, and it was a modest success. I had always hoped for an overwhelming success, but I felt myself very satisfied at the time that Sheba had come off as well as it did. Anticipating success (of any degree), I had always expected to feel hilarious, but I didn’t. Other people kept coming to me saying, “Aren’t you thrilled?” Even my oldest friends, who had known me during the years when I gave myself no peace for lack of success, were baffled by me. There was absolutely no one to understand how I felt, for I didn’t feel anything at all. I was in a funk. Where was the joy I had always imagined? Where were the gloating satisfactions I had always anticipated? I looked everywhere to find them. None were there."
"I could tell by her twitching features that she was wondering what in the world she would tell her readers. Obviously, she couldn’t tell them the truth, that the man who had written a (modestly) successful play was one of the saddest-looking creatures she had ever seen. "
"Strange and ironic. Once we find the fruits of success, the taste is nothing like what we had anticipated."
"During that period, the playwright comes to realize, maybe with considerable shock, that the play contains something very vital to him, something of the very essence of his own life. If it is rejected, he can only feel that he is rejected, too. Some part of him has been turned down, cast aside, even laughed at or scorned. If it is accepted, all that becomes him to feel is a deep gratefulness, like a man barely escaping a fatal accident, that he has survived."
"Success, it seems to me, would be somewhat meaningless if the play were not a personal contribution. The author who creates only for audience consumption is only engaged in a financial enterprise."
"Actually, Sheba made out well with about half of the reviewers, its total run being something less than six months. Some of the reviews showed an almost violent repugnance to the play. We did good business for only a few weeks and then houses began to dwindle to the size of tea parties. At one time, the actors all took salary cuts, and I took a cut in my royalties. The show was cheap to run, and so, with a struggle, we survived."
"Sheba is the closest thing to a story play that I have written, and it is the only play of mine that could be said to have two central characters. But even this play was a fabric of life, in which the two characters (Doc and Lola) were species of the environment."
"I don’t suppose that in any of my later plays I found the single dramatic intensity of action that I found in the drunk scene in Sheba, in which Doc threatens Lola’s life. I have deliberately sought breadth instead of depth in my plays since Sheba, and have sought a more forthright humor than Sheba could afford."
“Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed,” according to Emily Dickinson, and I realize what she meant when I compare the success I once anticipated with the success I found. They are not the same things, at all."
"COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA was first presented by The Theatre Guild at the Booth Theatre, New York City, on February 15, 1950, with the following cast: (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) DOC Sidney Blackmer MARIE Joan Lorring LOLA Shirley Booth TURK Lonny Chapman POSTMAN Daniel Reed MRS. COFFMAN Olga Fabian MILKMAN ]ohn Randolph MESSENGER Arnold Schulman BRUCE Robert Cunningham ED ANDERSON Wilson Brooks ELMO HUSTON Paul Krauss DIRECTED BY Daniel Mann"
In regards to alcoholism, I will comment on my next read which brought me to this book. I had forgot to connect this until I started reading and I find it funny that I had chosen this not on that purpose.
The play in short-a middle age couple are heading for a climax in their life.
There is so much to this and I will just leave it at that!💟💖💖💟🌸
After reading I come away with just reading something really great; I give all my reads I enjoy 5 stars, (I hate to classify otherwise) but this is not just a Favorite but an Ultimate Favorite and it will join others in that shelf.
The couple take in a young border who they center their hopes, dreams, fantasies on instead of their disappointed lives. Both middle age husband and wife had lost somethings over the years, keeping these thoughts to themselves. The lost dreams of the husband who had to marry young and forgo his education, only to be found unnecessary but too late. He sees things as pure and looks at the young girl as all that. The wife having nothing to occupy her time and no desire to be productive; she is starved for affection and love. She sees the young girl's boyfriends and dreams too! Both husband and wife's thoughts of the unreal are shattered to reality. Add alcoholism to the story and you have something quite raw with such a feeling of reality. Even though I knew the story, it did not lessen my enjoyment on this extremely sad but yes, happy read.
The point of having Sheba; the dog who lost and has not come back. The woman calls for little Sheba and loved in the past not wanting go forward. A loneliness and wanting something gone.
It is easy to give advice to keep busy as a neighbor has recommended to our lost friend but some good souls can not see the human suffering which makes this impossible at times.
The author had several thoughts which he shared in another edition, I read which has my notes and highlights. Look under my William Ingle shelf, if interested. I will quote below.
"The experience of my first production on Broadway was frantic and bewildering. The play was Come Back, Little Sheba, and it was a modest success. I had always hoped for an overwhelming success, but I felt myself very satisfied at the time that Sheba had come off as well as it did. Anticipating success (of any degree), I had always expected to feel hilarious, but I didn’t. Other people kept coming to me saying, “Aren’t you thrilled?” Even my oldest friends, who had known me during the years when I gave myself no peace for lack of success, were baffled by me. There was absolutely no one to understand how I felt, for I didn’t feel anything at all. I was in a funk. Where was the joy I had always imagined? Where were the gloating satisfactions I had always anticipated? I looked everywhere to find them. None were there."
"I could tell by her twitching features that she was wondering what in the world she would tell her readers. Obviously, she couldn’t tell them the truth, that the man who had written a (modestly) successful play was one of the saddest-looking creatures she had ever seen. "
"Strange and ironic. Once we find the fruits of success, the taste is nothing like what we had anticipated."
"During that period, the playwright comes to realize, maybe with considerable shock, that the play contains something very vital to him, something of the very essence of his own life. If it is rejected, he can only feel that he is rejected, too. Some part of him has been turned down, cast aside, even laughed at or scorned. If it is accepted, all that becomes him to feel is a deep gratefulness, like a man barely escaping a fatal accident, that he has survived."
"Success, it seems to me, would be somewhat meaningless if the play were not a personal contribution. The author who creates only for audience consumption is only engaged in a financial enterprise."
"Actually, Sheba made out well with about half of the reviewers, its total run being something less than six months. Some of the reviews showed an almost violent repugnance to the play. We did good business for only a few weeks and then houses began to dwindle to the size of tea parties. At one time, the actors all took salary cuts, and I took a cut in my royalties. The show was cheap to run, and so, with a struggle, we survived."
"Sheba is the closest thing to a story play that I have written, and it is the only play of mine that could be said to have two central characters. But even this play was a fabric of life, in which the two characters (Doc and Lola) were species of the environment."
"I don’t suppose that in any of my later plays I found the single dramatic intensity of action that I found in the drunk scene in Sheba, in which Doc threatens Lola’s life. I have deliberately sought breadth instead of depth in my plays since Sheba, and have sought a more forthright humor than Sheba could afford."
“Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed,” according to Emily Dickinson, and I realize what she meant when I compare the success I once anticipated with the success I found. They are not the same things, at all."
"COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA was first presented by The Theatre Guild at the Booth Theatre, New York City, on February 15, 1950, with the following cast: (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) DOC Sidney Blackmer MARIE Joan Lorring LOLA Shirley Booth TURK Lonny Chapman POSTMAN Daniel Reed MRS. COFFMAN Olga Fabian MILKMAN ]ohn Randolph MESSENGER Arnold Schulman BRUCE Robert Cunningham ED ANDERSON Wilson Brooks ELMO HUSTON Paul Krauss DIRECTED BY Daniel Mann"
In regards to alcoholism, I will comment on my next read which brought me to this book. I had forgot to connect this until I started reading and I find it funny that I had chosen this not on that purpose.
The play in short-a middle age couple are heading for a climax in their life.
There is so much to this and I will just leave it at that!💟💖💖💟🌸
July 11, 2023
Re-read.
May 3, 2015
A great setup and a tight, well-written little script, though ultimately pretty depressing. I always love Inge's dialogue, and his ability to demonstrate the beauty and pain of human relationships in almost claustrophobic detail, and this show has all that going for it. The ending, though, lacked any real resolution (which seemed to kind of be the point), and something about it just left me sad and wishing it could have been a little different. What started out as a pretty relevant show ended up seeming more like a product of its time in the end, though still well worth a read or a viewing!
March 3, 2018
“To live in the past, is to live in regret” I just wasn't feeling this play. The theme is a middle aged couple who have a female college student as a border in their home. They have no children so take a special interest in the young lady. The husband is a recovering alcoholic and the wife is a snoop and voyeur. I thought it was sad and deeply disturbing and not a play I would enjoy sitting through.
March 30, 2012
Classic. Inge's heartbreaking story about a couple shutting down and then possibly starting back up again on a new day. Very well-constructed with a great number of juicy parts for actors, and Inge really highlights the way we can involve ourselves in others' lives, to the point of self-destruction.
November 26, 2025
s tezkim srcem pisem da me tale drama ni prepricala
:( “come back little sheeba” ampak je ni blo tam in the first place buuuuu
je pa vsaj hitro berljiva in lahkotno preprosta
:( “come back little sheeba” ampak je ni blo tam in the first place buuuuu
je pa vsaj hitro berljiva in lahkotno preprosta
November 26, 2018
Growing up in the fifties I could not help but be aware of Come Back, Little Sheba. I remember my mom talking about the movie. I've never seen it. But, with the Best American Plays series of books I've been purchasing and this being one of the plays in one of the books, I decided to read it.
Come Back, Little Sheba was written by William Inge. A couple of aspects for which the play is known is its depiction of the Midwest as well as a portrait of ordinary lives of characters for whom anyone can relate. Having recently read Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad, to step away from the sophistication of these plays into a play that deals every bit as much with the human condition but in a low-key manner was, at first, a bit jarring. I was programmed for East Coast wit and this play portrayed a segment of society that's often dismissed because it's rooted in the everyday. As I continued reading, the heroic nature of these characters was revealed through Inge's honest portrayal of the daily struggles people, like those in the play, face. I came away from the experience of reading Come Back, Little Sheba feeling that a small, important gift had been given me, a gift of understanding and compassion.
If you are into plays, this one is a true gem. Oh, and if you are wondering who Little Sheba is, it's the puppy that disappeared before the play begins, the dog who Lola calls for each day to come back home. In a greater sense, Sheba represents the past for Lola and Doc. It was beautiful and youthful but as time progressed, it went away. At the end of the play, Lola realizes that the past is a place that should remain in the past. The present is what matters.
Come Back, Little Sheba was written by William Inge. A couple of aspects for which the play is known is its depiction of the Midwest as well as a portrait of ordinary lives of characters for whom anyone can relate. Having recently read Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad, to step away from the sophistication of these plays into a play that deals every bit as much with the human condition but in a low-key manner was, at first, a bit jarring. I was programmed for East Coast wit and this play portrayed a segment of society that's often dismissed because it's rooted in the everyday. As I continued reading, the heroic nature of these characters was revealed through Inge's honest portrayal of the daily struggles people, like those in the play, face. I came away from the experience of reading Come Back, Little Sheba feeling that a small, important gift had been given me, a gift of understanding and compassion.
If you are into plays, this one is a true gem. Oh, and if you are wondering who Little Sheba is, it's the puppy that disappeared before the play begins, the dog who Lola calls for each day to come back home. In a greater sense, Sheba represents the past for Lola and Doc. It was beautiful and youthful but as time progressed, it went away. At the end of the play, Lola realizes that the past is a place that should remain in the past. The present is what matters.
April 7, 2017
Most, if not all, of William Inge's work is so married to the period in which it was written that it has the potential to feel dated. But I think he is one of the best and most unrecognized playwrights of the 20th century. His plays are structured perfectly and among the most satisfying works of drama and this is one of his best. Lola struggles with her lost youth (even though she is only 39!), her recovering alcoholic husband, and, her lost dog, Little Sheba. Beautiful.
December 12, 2018
Probably powerful at the time (1950) and as performed. I just couldn't feel it, couldn't care, everyone so self-centered and short-sighted.
I just wish I could remember why it was recommended to me, back a decade or more ago. Catchy title so I am glad I finally tracked it down and can mark it done, anyway.
I just wish I could remember why it was recommended to me, back a decade or more ago. Catchy title so I am glad I finally tracked it down and can mark it done, anyway.
June 19, 2025
Come Back Little Sheba by William Inge (Samuel French, Inc. 1979) (812) (4054).
Playwright William Inge was a recovering alcoholic whose characters often were alcoholics as well. This is the script of the play.
Come Back Little Sheba is the story of a middle aged childless couple. The husband (“Doc”) is an angst-filled chiropractor trapped in a loveless marriage. When he impregnated a girl “Lola”) while he was preparing for medical school, he felt duty-bound to marry her (at the point of a gun held by her father). She soon miscarried, and they were never able to have children. Doc gave up the dream of medical school and became a chiropractor. Although Lola has been fulfilled by her life as a domestic homebody, Doc has felt unspoken resentment over his circumstances ever since.
Saddened by and dissatisfied with the course of his life, Doc became a functioning (if not functional) alcoholic.
As the play opens, with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, Doc has become a “dry drunk,” having walked away from the bottle a little less than a year ago. Lola is thrilled at his recovery and has no idea how fragile Doc’s improvement actually is.
To subsidize Doc’s chiropractic income, the couple share their home with Marie, a young and beautiful boarder / tenant who rents a room. Marie (in Doc’s eyes) is pure and virginal and the very ideal of a princess.
When a young suitor comes into the girl’s life, it sets in motion events that irrevocably rock Doc’s and Lola’s world.
And the titular reference to “Little Sheba?” Little Sheba was Lola’s pet pup who disappeared months before. Each morning and evening, Lola faithfully stood on the porch and called for her missing pet with the words from the play’s title: “Come back Little Sheba.”
That cry apparently served as a placeholder for the missed opportunities and disappointments in their lives.
My rating: 7/10, finished 6/16/25 (4054).
December 21, 2022
The play is about an alcoholic who has been resolutely practicing his 12 Steps in AA; there's a quart of whiskey in the kitchen cabinet, but Doc Delaney hasn't touched a drop in nearly a year. He's living day to day, the way his Serenity Prayer tells him to, fighting back the regret he must feel every time he looks at his once beautiful, now middle-aged, fat, and lazy wife, Lola. But the presence of a nubile young coed named Marie, who is renting a room in their house, has aroused odd sexual/protective/repressive urges in Doc, and eventually she will be the catalyst for his disastrous falling off the wagon.
Lola, meanwhile, struggles vainly trying to fill days made empty by her husband's emotional retreat. She's as superficially busy and giddy as the most desperate Samuel Beckett character, chattering endlessly about nothing at all to anyone who might happen by for a moment to hear her, searching for something that feels meaningful to do, even when such obvious things as cleaning the house or cooking breakfast or combing her hair remain undone.
Inge has created an interesting pair of characters in this raw play, and even though many of the social attitudes and most of the sexual baggage he's saddled them with are very much of their time (e.g., Lola calls Doc "Daddy" and likes watching Marie and her boyfriend make out; Doc is virulently disturbed by the idea that Marie is sketching her buff shirtless boyfriend for art class), they're easy to understand and to empathize with.
Lola, meanwhile, struggles vainly trying to fill days made empty by her husband's emotional retreat. She's as superficially busy and giddy as the most desperate Samuel Beckett character, chattering endlessly about nothing at all to anyone who might happen by for a moment to hear her, searching for something that feels meaningful to do, even when such obvious things as cleaning the house or cooking breakfast or combing her hair remain undone.
Inge has created an interesting pair of characters in this raw play, and even though many of the social attitudes and most of the sexual baggage he's saddled them with are very much of their time (e.g., Lola calls Doc "Daddy" and likes watching Marie and her boyfriend make out; Doc is virulently disturbed by the idea that Marie is sketching her buff shirtless boyfriend for art class), they're easy to understand and to empathize with.
October 19, 2025
a bit of a tragic play. a marriage not working, a young female boarder who has several boyfriends, not a lot to the story, but it elicits a good bit of emotion, imagining the day to day life of the characters. the husband is secretly in love with the female staying in their house to the point that he didn’t even realize it until he witnesses her with her boyfriends. The mother is depressed voyeur who can’t have children had a miscarriage years ago which is the whole reason they ended up married which the husband resents… like why did I marry this woman and now I didn’t even have to be honorable because there is no child.
And there is this alleged dog little Sheba. Who ran away and was never seen again. The dog kind of represents all of their past, the good old days, hopes and dreams.
Finally in the end I think the woman realizes it’s time to stop living in the past now that the young girl border has moved away with her boyfriend. I think the girl was a daily reminder of her youth… and with the girl taking off to start her life, Lola had a realization.
Overall enjoyable dialogue and intrigue, but depressing.
they made a movie of this play , I’m gonna see if I can find it on Netflix. I can’t imagine a whole lot going on in the movie because the play really takes place over the course of two days! But I am interested to see what they did with the movie.
And there is this alleged dog little Sheba. Who ran away and was never seen again. The dog kind of represents all of their past, the good old days, hopes and dreams.
Finally in the end I think the woman realizes it’s time to stop living in the past now that the young girl border has moved away with her boyfriend. I think the girl was a daily reminder of her youth… and with the girl taking off to start her life, Lola had a realization.
Overall enjoyable dialogue and intrigue, but depressing.
they made a movie of this play , I’m gonna see if I can find it on Netflix. I can’t imagine a whole lot going on in the movie because the play really takes place over the course of two days! But I am interested to see what they did with the movie.
July 4, 2023
a fine play that was in fact an assigned reading but i’ve never felt so dumb and smart while reading a play somehow? the symbolism is very explicit though so i appreciated that but it felt like the plot didn’t really Go anywhere i guess. i don’t know i’m sure it’s great to watch rather than read. no resolution was made by the end, but i’m guessing that was intentional for inge
+1 star for the play being 69 pages. nice.
-2 stars for the weird relationship between doc and marie and how he slut shames marie and lola in this play bc he’s miserable with his decisions but i guess that’s the 50s for you
+1 star for the play being 69 pages. nice.
-2 stars for the weird relationship between doc and marie and how he slut shames marie and lola in this play bc he’s miserable with his decisions but i guess that’s the 50s for you
October 10, 2023
It's hard to just arbitrarily give plays like these a ranking as compared to longer works like books, so I'm going on vibes for most of these. My experience with Inge prior to this was last year around Labor Day when I watched the film version of "Picnic" for the first time. It was good but a kind of human train wreck (in a good way) that can be hard to watch play out in performance. Unfortunately, unlike similar dramatic ilks like Streetcar, Glengarry Glen Ross, or Virginia Woolf (the latter two of which I will get to eventually, only a matter of time), the film version only carried so much, and I'm unsure if I'll watch it again. I'll leave my reading of the play version of "Picnic" to decide if I will return to it or not. But that's beside the point. Other than that, I've no experience with Inge or his plays. So, coming into this, I didn't really know what to expect.
I certainly didn't expect tearing up at the final scene, of the sad symbolic realization that the happy days of the past have been killed and the characters need to move on. That was something.
Like I said above, it's hard to arbitrarily assign a number to a play like this. I'm giving it a four because I think it was very good; not stellar, oh my god everyone must read this, but I certainly wasn't disappointed by it. I'll certainly read more Inge going forward--which is good, since I have a collection of Inge's first four plays (including his two most famous, Picnic and Bus Stop) that I'm reading from.
My rating: 4/5
Would I own/re-read?: Re-read sure.
TW: Alcoholism, Drunkeness (Violent), 50's sensibilities, Cheating
Does the animal die?: The Little Sheba of the title refers to a dog that has been missing since before the event of the play. It is the symbol in the symbolism referred to in the above. That being said, to follow through on the point, there is discussion about the dog potentially (or likely, even) being dead, and it comes to a similar fate in a dream sequence.
I certainly didn't expect tearing up at the final scene, of the sad symbolic realization that the happy days of the past have been killed and the characters need to move on. That was something.
Like I said above, it's hard to arbitrarily assign a number to a play like this. I'm giving it a four because I think it was very good; not stellar, oh my god everyone must read this, but I certainly wasn't disappointed by it. I'll certainly read more Inge going forward--which is good, since I have a collection of Inge's first four plays (including his two most famous, Picnic and Bus Stop) that I'm reading from.
My rating: 4/5
Would I own/re-read?: Re-read sure.
TW: Alcoholism, Drunkeness (Violent), 50's sensibilities, Cheating
Does the animal die?: The Little Sheba of the title refers to a dog that has been missing since before the event of the play. It is the symbol in the symbolism referred to in the above. That being said, to follow through on the point, there is discussion about the dog potentially (or likely, even) being dead, and it comes to a similar fate in a dream sequence.
September 3, 2024
Trying to pass through the mundane motions of time while living in the past or living through others who haven’t lost their youth or opportunity only creates a circle of disappointment. You must keep going to break the cycle.
3.5 🌟
3.5 🌟
June 2, 2020
Classic 1950s middle class drama. I saw it at Trinity Rep years ago with Barbara Orson as Lola, but I never read until now.
April 15, 2021
This play is about people who are GOING TO BE but aren't yet 40. I feel like that's a personal attack.
May 21, 2021
Excellent play about a woman who is obsessed by the good times of her past and the unconditional love of her lost dog.
September 23, 2021
Good play. Can't read it without seeing Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster.
April 23, 2022
The 1952 film adaptation has always been a favorite of mine. It does justice to the play, which is as perfect as you can get. 5 stars.
March 13, 2017
Lola and Doc have been married for years, but both of them are feeling the strain of age on their marriage. Doc holds a lot of pent up resentment towards Lola, but is celebrating a years sobriety. Lola is bored, lost, and lonely, even in house full of people. Marie is the young woman living with them while she goes to school, courting 2 different guys and bright-eyed about the future. Thus the scene is set for William Inge's human drama COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA. It's a very sad, well written look at marriage and getting old. Lola is particular well written, the often forgotten emotions of a middle-aged housewife are very well explored here. Highly recommended.
March 6, 2013
I have stopped for a while because I didn't find it very interesting .finished the first play the shiva.it felt outdated and a like a bad copy of Tennesee Williams plays .maybe I will return to it later
March 10, 2018
A sometimes uneven plot elevated by a surprising depiction of addiction and some really satisfying characterisation. I must ding it a bit for the way the way that the side characters flit in and out and blend together, but in the end I felt like I’d read a good one.
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