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1 " 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 "
― William Inge , Picnic plus 3
2 " People distrust you if you don’t play the same games they do, Sonny. It’s the same after you grow up. "
3 " I’ll be darned if I’d let any man tell me whether I could bob my hair or not. Why, I wouldn’t go back to long hair now for anything. Morris says maybe I should take up smoking cigarettes now. Would you believe it, Cora? Women all over Oklahoma City are smoking cigarettes now. Isn’t that disgraceful? What in God’s name are we all coming to? "
4 " Anonymous. He doesn’t care if I tell you that ’cause he’s proud of it. He hasn’t touched a drop in almost a year. All that time we’ve had a quart of whiskey in the pantry for company and he hasn’t even gone near it. Doesn’t even want to. You know, alcoholics can’t drink like ordinary people; they’re allergic to it. It affects them different. They get started drinking and can’t stop. Liquor transforms them. Sometimes they get mean and violent and wanta fight, but if they let liquor alone, they’re perfectly all right, just like you and me. "
5 " 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. "
6 " A good author insists on being accepted on his own terms, and audiences must bicker awhile before they’re willing to give in. One learns not to be resentful about this condition but to credit it to human nature. "
7 " I did some Twelfth Step work down there once before. They put alcoholics right in with the crazy people. It’s horrible—these men all twisted and shaking—eyes all foggy and full of pain. Some guy there with his fists clamped together, so he couldn’t kill anyone. There was a young man, just a young man, had scratched his eyes out. "
8 " In an article I once wrote on Picnic, I compared a play to a journey, in which every moment should be as interesting as the destination. "
9 " I have never heard of a suicide that I expected. "
10 " LOLA Oh, no. She’s probably going out with Turk tonight. DOC She’s too nice a girl to be going out with a guy like Turk. LOLA I don’t know why, Daddy. Turk’s nice. "
11 " LOLA You try to make out like every young girl is Jennifer Jones in the Song of Bernadette. "
12 " MARIE (Not sounding exactly cheerful) Mrs. Delaney, I’m expecting a telegram this morning. Would you leave it on my dresser for me when it comes? LOLA Sure, honey. No bad news, I hope. MARIE Oh, no! It’s from Bruce. LOLA (MARIE’S boy friends are one of her liveliest interests) Oh, your boy friend in Cincinnati. Is he coming to see you? "
13 " LOLA I wanted children, too. When I lost my baby and found out I couldn’t have any more, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to get a job, but Doc wouldn’t hear of it. "
14 " In the spring a young man’s fancy turns … pretty fancy. "
15 " I always envied you, having a husband you could boss. "
16 " Scenes An old house in a run-down neighborhood of a Midwestern city. "
17 " DOC (Goes into living room) ’Bout time for Fibber McGee and Molly. "
18 " Then for the first time you grabbed me and kissed me. Tears came to your eyes, Doc, and you said you’d love me forever and ever. Remember? You said … if I didn’t marry you, you wanted to die … I remember ’cause it scared me for anyone to say a thing like that. DOC (In a repressed tone) Yes, Baby. LOLA And when the evening came on, we stretched out on the cool grass and you kissed me all night long. DOC (Opens doors) Baby, you’ve got to forget those things. That was twenty years ago. LOLA I’ll soon be forty. Those years have just vanished—vanished into thin air. "
19 " DOC No … no, Baby. We should never feel bad about what’s past. What’s in the past can’t be helped. You … you’ve got to forget it and live for the present. If you can’t forget the past, you stay in it and never get out. "
20 " In the kitchen there is a table, center. On it are piled dirty dishes from supper the night before. Woodwork in the kitchen is dark and grimy. No industry whatsoever has been spent in making it one of those white, cheerful rooms that we commonly think kitchens should be. "
