Unflinching but Touching Take on ‘Little Sheba’

William Inge’s play “Come Back, Little Sheba,” at the Group Repertory Theatre, is about coming to terms with loss as an older couple feels their age.

Director Lonny Chapman has double-cast this production. In the performance reviewed, Christopher Weeks and Geraldine Allen give touching performances as a codependent couple in a low-rent district. Weeks as Doc gives subtle signs of interest in his young boarder, Marie (Michelle Jonas), who lives in the converted dining room. Is his affection fatherly or is there something more?

Likewise, his wife, Lola (Allen), is flirtatious and overly attentive to Marie’s temporary boyfriend, Turk (Dorian Cirillo). Lola takes some voyeuristic enjoyment watching these young lovers and their passionate embraces, and isn’t particularly bothered that Marie has a fiance (Stephen Young) in another town.

Chapman’s direction doesn’t flinch from showing the embarrassing interest Lola has in the beauty of young men’s bodies, although he doesn’t make an ugly drunk too ugly, letting most of the horror come from the hateful words Doc spews at his frightened wife. Allen is particularly effective as a once-beautiful woman who still knows how to stroke a man’s ego and pathetically longs for the adulation of her youth.

There are places where this play creaks. But Jonas and Young play the younger couple as brittle, shallow and calculating--making Lola’s stand-by-her-man attitude seem more noble than it might otherwise.

*

“Come Back Little Sheba,” Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. $16. (818) 769-PLAY. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.