Come Back, Little Sheba

Come Back, Little ShebaLola is a Chatty Cathy. The central character of William Inge's play Come Back, Little Sheba, this desperate housewife is a compulsive conversationalist. It is rare that she herself is not talking, and if she is not, she seeks distraction, especially from the radio. It is when she is silent that life becomes unbearable for this Lola, brought to the stage in a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching performance by S. Epatha Merkerson. Lola is the driving force of this story, a domestic drama of the 1950s revived on Broadway in a riveting production that is simultaneously compelling and horrifying.Lola and her husband Doc (Kevin Anderson) live in a small, cluttered house in a small suburban town. Their home isn't much, but it's pretty comfortable. Lola isn't much of a housekeeper, but she does what she can. She's getting older, and she's put on a few pounds. Her main concern is her husband, a recovering alcoholic. Doc has been sober for almost a year, and every chance she gets, Lola encourages him to remain this way. The relationship between the two is anxious and affectionate, with Lola referring to her husband as "Doc" and "Daddy" and he to her as "Baby." Doc is a chiropractor, although he once had ambitions to be an MD, and Lola stays at home while he is at the office.Despite their seemingly peaceful, domestic household and the fact that they share a bedroom, the two function more as father and daughter than husband and wife, with Doc scolding Lola and Lola responding, wide-eyed and complacent, "I'm sorry, Daddy, I won't do it again." The two did not have a typical courtship, with the doctor waiting a year before even kissing her, and, soon after, sleeping with her. It is revealed through their reminiscing that Doc and Lola had a pregnancy scare and lost the child soon after their wedding.Without no one to devote her attentions to, and without anyone to focus attention on her, Lola is bored and restless and desperate for companionship. No matter who comes to her door, she embraces them. In one of the more amusing sequences of the first act, she encounters the mailman, the milkman and her neighbor (Brenda Wehle )in sequence, encouraging them to stay for water, coffee or just conversation. Seemingly innocent, she artlessly shares the intimate details of her life and inquires into others, blissfully unaware of the discomfort that she causes those around her. With a remarkably understated performance, Merkerson gives Lola an endearing vulnerability, both comedic and sympathetic .Her loneliness is palpable.The only one seemingly immune to the discomfort is their boarder, Marie, an art student at the local college. Deftly played by rising star Zoe Kazan, the dewey ambitious Marie appears to be everything people could want in a surrogate daughter. Lola admires Marie, seeing in her everything that she herself is not, delighting in the young girl's many dates and even spying on her when she is in the living room with a boy.That is the problem for Doc, who is just a bit too fixated on Marie's boyfriend Turk, a star of the track team whose vocabulary seems to be less than the weights he can bench press. It's just that Doc doesn't think Turk is good enough for Marie, that's all. He thinks Marie is a nice girl, who deserves a nice boy. And it's the realization that Marie doesn't share those sentiments with him that pushes him over the edge – and back to the bottle.Up until then, Doc had been a kind, gentle, slightly nervous head of the household. But after a few stiff ones, Anderson undergoes a transformation into an icy monster of blistering rage. Tortured by his anger and tormented by wondering what would have been. he unleashes all of his frustration and disappointment from his life onto his wife, who he sees as the one to blame for all of this. Lola wasn't worth it for him.One of the surprises of the script is its feminist subtext, brought to light by Lola herself. When she learns that Marie's art class features nude female models but not nude male, she wants to know why. If it's all right for a woman, it should be all right for a man, she says, despite Doc's objections and explanation that it's just different for the two. This statement comes to mind later when, after Doc begins drinking again, Lola asks her parents if she can stay with them while she decides if she will leave her husband. Her parents refuse, forcing their daughter to remain with an abusive alcoholic rather than be alone. It is hardly surprising, but the lack of shock does not decrease the incredible sadness that Merkerson depicts without saying a word. This is a woman who would not give up hope, even for her dog, steadfastly calling for her every day in hopes that she would come back.Little Sheba herself never sets foot onstage. But you can't help but hope for Lola's sake that maybe she will come back after all.