Evening star., 1952-06-18

different among name players wi
Not of her choosing Is one
the more basic relations of the Sc
play, Come Back, Little Sheba," 4"
to say about the human animal
Moreover. the drama written by
William Inge is one that demands
acting, the more so for having
been acted brilliantly by Shirley
Booth in its original days.
It seems almost no less than her
due to shower Miss Blondell with
praise for this quality Of taste and
courage, but reservation or two
will have to be entered here. Miss
Blondell's morally and physically
sleazy Lola is an unevenly played
character. In last nights OPEN
ing performance, she was some
what overdone in the early stages
of the play. Even for Lola, she
came up a shade too blousy and
a pinch or two over on the sexy
side.
Yet even with these correctable
faults, Miss Blondell's tattered
heroine is a dramatic improve
ment upon these endless standard
females of summer boudoir drama
Lola is a kitchen girl, in her
slatterny way, and it is surprising
what a difference that alone
makes.
~ - -
Come Back, Little Sheba" is a
sincere and earnest treatment of
Illustration which marked Inge,
in 1850, as a playwright of conse-
Quence.
It IS the story of a marriage, a
hapless union between a weak and
honorable man and weak and
uncontrollably generous girl.
Twenty years before. Doc married
Lola because that was the decent
thing to do under the circum-
stances. For this quixotic gesture,
he has paid a progressively more,
desperate price.
Doc is a chiropractor instead of
the medical man he set out to be.
He lives in house that is a ruin,
a clutter of dirt and disorder
matched only by slovenliness of
Lola's personal appearance. Until
a year before, Doc had tried to |
drink himself into oblivion. Now
he is living on the thin inspiration
of his pity for Lola, and the illu-
sion of wondrous innocence and
purity of a young college girl who
is boarding in their home.
The girl, Marie, is Docs |
cherished image of the girl he
thought he was marrying 20 years
before. The last great shock of his |
life is to be the discovery that
Marie, with Lola's connivance, is
the same weak and wanton fe-
male creature that his wife turned
out to be.
Docs reaction to this is the
classic bender of a lifetime. He
comes out of it, however, with
enough of his innate decency in
tact to intimate that he will carry
on to the bitter end. /
x y
This is pretty grim material but |
it is by no means written or
played with the mercilessness i'm
plicit in it. AS portrayed by Miss
Blondell and Wilson Brooks, Lola
and Doc are wistfully amusing |
figures as well as pathetic ones.
The suggestion Of Miss Blond
ellis performance, indeed, is that
she is so concerned with the
comedy emphasis on Lola's sloven-
1y nature that she exaggerates this
aspect Of the character. No woman |.
could keep a more disorderly
house, in the literal sense Of the
phrase, and none could be more
personally repugnant to a sensi-
tive man but to overstress this as
pect of Lola is to rob her of the
pity she deserves. Deserves from
both Doc and the audience.
AS Inge wrote her, Lola is not
o carricature. She is weak, lazy.
brainlesS, and half-batty in fret
ting over the loss of her dog, Little |,
6heba. She is interested in males
the postman. milkman, and
Marie's boy friendS-and she likes
loud music on the radio and going |
to the movies. These aspects Of her
nature are amusing, but. most of /
all in her dumb way, she likes Doc
and she lives with some uneasy
understanding Of what she has
done to him.
Miss Blondell brings all these
qualities of Lola into her por-
trait but it would be a better one
If a few Of them were less exces-
Sive
Brooks is a competent perform
er in his impersonation of the
gentle, pathetically idealistic Doc.
It is a deftly rounded characteri-
cation he offers of a a man whol
had to marry the girl and lived to
rue it with every breath, drunk or