Kevin Anderson and S. Epatha Merkerson (Photo: Joan Marcus )

No, the lonely midwestern housewife's beloved little dog Sheba will never come back. But, the play for which it was named has at long last come back to Broadway, with an outstanding cast and the shabby two-story house as specified in William Inge's stage directions lovingly recreated by James Noone. And S. Epatha Merkerson is a Lola well worth watching. Accustomed as today's audiences are to color-blind casting, the idea of an African-American woman playing the wife of a white and very uptight chiropractor in the Midwest of 1950 will nevertheless strike some as a problematic. Thanks to Merkerson's natural performance, it never is. What you see is not a woman of color, but a desperately lonely and disappointed one.

William Inge came to playwriting quite late but that arrival brought him immediate and major success as a poetic chronicler of small town lives fraught with loneliness, unrealized longings and hypocrisy. Come Back, Little Sheba was his first Broadway play and it, like Picnic. (which won a Pulitzer), Bus Stop and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, was successfully brought to the screen. But, like Tennessee Williams, who befriended and helped him during his stint as a newspaper drama critic, Inge's star faded and his works were eventually respected but neglected.

Williamstown Theatre Festival capped its mostly British play 2005 season with Inge's Bus Stop (review), but longer running productions of this or any other Inge play have been few and far between. In recent years Jack Cummings III, the artistic director of a young Off-Off-Broadway company, the Transport Group, has been instrumental in calling attention to Inge's work —first with an anthology of his short stories called A Requiem for William and last year with a stunningly different production of The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (The Dark at the Top of the Stairs review and Requiem for William review). However, given the small size and short runs of a downtown company like this, it takes a Broadway revival like the one now mounted by Manhattan Theatre Club to give Inge the comeback he deserves.

Happily, New Yorkers are seeing the same beautifully staged Come Back, Little Sheba that Laura reviewed last summer. Not all the members of the California cast have joined Merkerson as Lola and Brenda Wehle as her neighbor on Broadway but the New York cast changes prove to be exceptionally fine.

Kevin Anderson invests the role of the frustrated Doc with enough passion and power to banish comparisons with Burt Lancaster of the movie version (Sydney Blackmer was the original stage Doc). You almost hate him for the way he keeps Lola in a perpetual state of nervous insecurity, yet you can't help sympathizing with his tightly controlled feelings of pain and frustration —and when he relaxes enough to let Lola sweet talk him into dancing with her, you see the glimmer of the love that once existed between him and this sweet but simple woman. When the emotions and sexual frustration stirred up in both Lola and Doc by the pretty young boarder become too much for Doc's fragile sobriety, his explosion takes your breath away; and the men from AA insist on his hospitalization, you're reminded of Blanche DuBois' harrowing final scene in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Zoe Kazan (Photo: Joan Marcus )

The Broadway revival is also blessed with a wonderful Marie. Zoe Kazan, has not only become one of New York's busiest and most applauded young thespians since appearing in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but her Broadway debut in an Inge play is especially meaningful. After the success of Sheba, topnotch directors were all eager direct Inge's plays, and it was Elia Kazan, Zoe's grandfather, who in 1959 directed The Dark at the Top of the Stairs at the Music Box. Ms. Kazan's performance is a subtle blend of youthful sexual exuberance and pragmatism. Yet, she makes you see that while she's smarter and stronger than Lola, her giving up college to marry a successful young suitor from a wealthy family, is another potential domestic tragedy in the making. If Inge had lived, maybe he would have written a play about Marie when she reached Lola's age. Both the younger and older women in Sheba will strike today's more empowered women as old-fashioned. Yet, they are fascinating viewed in context of women's social evolution.

Lyle Kanouse and Matthew J. Williamson reprise their roles as the postman and the milkman who, besides the efficient, squeaky clean Mrs. Coffman (Wehle), are pretty much the only contact the lonely Lola has with the outside world. The new additions to the support cast are just fine.

I'm re-posting the Los Angeles review after the Broadway production notes since it encompasses all the reasons this is such a welcome revival.

COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA
Playwright: William Inge
Director: Michael Pressman
Cast (*indicates reprise of LA production): Kevin Anderson (Doc), *S. Epatha Merkerson (Lola), Zoe Kazan (Outsider), Brian J. Smith (Turk), *Lyle Kanouse (Postman), *Brenda Wehle (Mrs. Coffman), * Matthew J. Williamson (Milkman), Daniel Damon Joyce (Messenger), Chad Hoepner(Bruce), Keith Randolph Smith (Ed Anderson), Joseph Adams (Elmo Huston)
Set Design: James Noone
Costume Design: Jennifer von Mayrhauser
Lighting Design: Jane Cox
Sound Design: Obadiah Eaves
Original Music: Peter Golub
Running Time: Two hours, plusone intermission
Biltmore, 261 West 47th Street, 212/2396200
From 1/03/08; opening 1/24/08; closing 3/16/08.
Reviewed by Elyse Sommer on January 20, 2008.