AISLE SAY New York
COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA
by William Inge
Directed by Michael Pressman
Starring S. Epatha Merkerson and
Kevin Anderson
Manhattan
Theatre Club
at the Biltmore Theatre on West 47th Street
Reviewed by David Spencer
In
some quarters it seems that William Inge is having something of a resurgence, and I think I understand it, to
some degree: When he was writing the plays that hit most powerfully—from
about 1950 through the mid-60s—he was dealing with sexual suppression,
and the mores of the time, especially as they existed in small Midwestern
towns; and though perhaps never with conscious intent (for he was often writing
semi-autobiographically, both about issues that plagued him as a closeted
homosexual, and what he observed in his family and others while he was growing
up), he was also giving American drama its first glimpse into those themes
through the filter of social commentary, and thereby also of modern psychology.
His
brand of "case history" archetypes were among many suddenly being
introduced into popular culture. Bear in mind, this was right around the time
when television was beginning to flourish, and offer its own issue-themed
dramas, through the daring works of Paddy Chayesfsky, Rod Serling, Reginald
Rose and others. World War II was just a glance over the shoulder in the past,
moral outrage was still being vented, and the need to expose and examine the
human condition, toward better universal understanding—with a new medium
as the messenger—was hotter, perhaps, than at any time before or since.
This
produced works of amazing power and passion, but only a handful of them still
hold up today—and why? Because the issues were being approached with
freshman eyes. When JP Miller ripped the lid off alcoholism with Days of
Wine and Roses, its frankness was
bracing because the condition and its treatment had never been dramatized
before. By today's standards, however, the characters seem more transparent as
symbols—the "everyman" story of an average, middle-class
American married couple's descent into addiction can seem quaint against more
dynamic portraits of idiosyncratic victims under less pointedly
"universal" conditions (i.e. today an addict can even be the title
character of his own TV series, such as the brilliant diagnostician Gregory
House of House, M.D., whose
reasons for addiction are much more complex, much less open to easy moralization
and, in keeping with what modern society has become, much more self-aware.) The
same can be said of Rod Serling's Patterns, a once-devastating expose of the corporate world,
rendered obsolete with such descendants as The Firm, The Insider, Wall
Street, among others, to say
nothing of Wolfram and Hart in Angel and the family business in The Sopranos.
But
there were certain issues too hot for television of the time. Sexual
suppression being high on the list of taboos (indeed, forthright investigation into
sexuality of any kind was
almost non-existent). And Inge was writing the issue-themed dramas you couldn't
get on the tube. Quaint now, but then they contained an innate raciness
and—as the ads often pointed out—candor that mainstream theatre was ready to handle. And,
so it seems, audiences were heartily in support of the combination of
titillation, revelation and melancholy in which he specialized.
It
was, though, a combination that was very much of rather than ahead of its time, and Inge's popularity waned. (His 1970
suicide was reportedly linked to his belief that he had lost the ability to
write well.)
But
it's just as clear that he was a trail-blazer of sorts, paving the way for
better and more sophisticated dramas to deal with similar subject matter. And I
think that's why his work is being regarded anew. Now that a few more decades have passed, the times in which he wrote
can be viewed in greater perspective, and his dramas seem less dated than like
time-capsule snapshots. The paradox is, he wasn't a brilliant trail-blazer. He didn't have the clenched-jaw
rhetoric of Serling, the irony of Chayefsky, the poetry of his mentor,
Williams, the political fire of that other Miller, Arthur. What he had, instead, was what JP
Miller had: the gifts of a solid,
journeyman dramatist, far better and more memorable than average, but just as
far a cry from greatness of literary and stylistic profile. He just happened to
be the guy who was positioned to do what he did at the time it got done. More
remarkable for having made the contribution than leaving an indelible
impression as the contributor.
And
that, to my mind, is the primary reason why the current revival of Come
Back, Little Sheba is, for all
the high-grade talent invested in it, so terribly mild.
The
very opening image and dynamic teeters on the brink of self-parody. It's 1950,
we're in a house in an unidentified "Midwestern city" at morning, and
there in the kitchen is "Doc" (Kevin Anderson) a weary, middle aged chiropractor whose
reformed-alcoholic, washed-out demeanor pines for faded youth—and the student
border to whom he and his wife have rented the reconverted dining room, a
young. nubile college girl named Marie (Zoe Kazan). And when his wife Lola (S. Epatha Merkerson) enters, chunky, chatty and further from nubile
than Doc ever imagined she'd be when he married her, more than just the obvious
sexual dynamic is in play: you're just as conscious of the author's
machinations. What better way to illustrate a man's lost sense of masculinity than
to put an inaccessible bimbette (who isn't as innocent as all that, as the developing story reveals) under the same
roof as the weathered, needy, nattering, yet still childlike and
trusting—and all too available—hausfrau
he was obliged to marry after getting her pregnant? (And the baby died, and she lost the ability to have more. To borrow a
delivery rhythm from Rodney Dangerfield, the situation is loaded, I tell ya, loaded!)
Then
there are the moments of, as they say, quiet desperation, which are really
about what they don't say.
"You're not sorry you married me, are you Doc?" asks Lola; the query
providing its own answer. And Doc insisting, with twelve-step fervor, that it
does no good to dwell on the past, you have to live in the PRESENT and move FORWARD,
the very emphasis communicating his obsession with missed opportunity.
And
there's the obligatory bottle of booze in the cupboard, untouched for a year, a
symbol of Doc's hard-won sobriety; which sure enough, prepares for the moment
when Doc, stressed beyond endurance, takes it out and looks at it,
thoughtfully, thirstily...
It's
melodrama, kids, pure and simple. But as I say, it was being applied in a new
way, when Inge wrought it. Thus its impact then. Thus its creakiness now.
S.
Epatha Merkerson, a lovely actress, keeps it very simple, which is ideal for
the guileless Lola, but really only when the appointed actress has a natural
simple-ness in the palate of her performance persona. I have no idea what the
role's originator, Shirley Booth, was like in real life, she may have had the
intellect of an aerospace engineer; but onscreen she was always a little dotty
and believably unsophisticated. Ms. Merkerson, however, seems to be achieving
her Lola by muting her natural
intelligence—subsequently there's no, I have to put it this way, no bounce
to it. Lola's dogged optimism,
despite lacerating sadness, is her drug,
just as alcohol is Doc's, and the power of it to transform a mailman, a
milkman, a neighbor, from thinking her at first a busybody to regarding her as
an angel of mercy who really notices and cares about what they do, needs to be
the wattage that offsets the dated funk of the rest.
Likewise,
Kevin Anderson's Doc seems a contrivance; Mr. Anderson's found many a
right-sounding little spin to put on things, but for me, I was constantly aware
of the spin. But I don't really
think the less of him for it. He's always been a good actor and Doc, for all
his extravagance of expression and gesture, makes for a thankless role. Even as
Inge insists upon Doc being redeemable, the mans's a letch and an uptight prig
with not even a dark sense of humor to make him bearable. Then again, Inge's
lyric realism is not about verbal wit. But you can't blame an audience for
hoping.
Disturbingly
too, the combination of Merkerson and Anderson doesn't ring true. This may be
in part due to the colorblind casting in the milieu of this particular play
(and by the way I'm a HUGE fan of colorblind casting, more and more as I get
older, because I think itŐs a prime contributor to what makes ethnicity less
and less of a social barrier), but a part of me wonders if it's as simple as a
lack of real chemistry between the two stars. As my companion of the evening
remarked, you feel as if they met during rehearsals, not as if they'd spent the
last twenty years together.
The
rest of the cast, under Michael Pressman's unobtrusive direction ranges from serviceable to sturdily reliable
(the latter represented by old pros like Brenda Wehle and Kevin Randolph Smith), but stuck with likewise archetypal roles, they
could hardly be inspired.
Now
here's where being a critic is a strange job, because while I believe what I've
said is true, this Come Back, Little Sheba is not dull or flaccid, nor in any manner
mishandled or negligent. It's cleanly professional, straightforwardly
respectful, utterly watchable, "enjoyable" in the sense that you
don't begrudge the time spent or the exposure to the play—and even
engaging: I re-emphasize that though Inge wasn't a mold-breaking stylist, he
was still an expert storyteller. And the audience response reflects that.
But
there's a line that separates decent, diligent professional work that you can't
help but respect; and an evening that reaches for, and perhaps even touches,
something divine. And Come Back, Little Sheba never comes anywhere near crossing it...
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