Come Back, Little Sheba

See it if
You're up for a well-acted period piece set in one of the most awkward, passive-aggressive stagings in memory, audience literally boxed in.

Don't see it if
Tragedy and Regret, obvious metaphor, unrelenting melodrama and/or a realistic alcoholic episode and crash are more than you can bear. 

The Gym at Judson can be a difficult space, and Inge's dusty classic packs more metaphors than a litter of pups, yet even so director Cummings feels the need to pile on yet one more physical metaphor on his audience. Seated 3-rows deep around a playing area the size of an actual railroad apartment, small dividing walls split the audience into sections and from each other, markers for the alienation and loneliness soon to come. Some sections for the most part almost always a room away from the actors, the blocked sight lines ensure that someone's always missing something — especially that fatal fifth of whiskey, and with it, a lot of suspense. 

Still, the actors are game and committed, trying and for the most part avoiding the script's inherent clichés. Patterson's Turk manages to add dimension to what otherwise might just be a pretty part, McRae's Lola is dutifully forlorn and believable, and though Kolonski mugs a bit as Doc, his work at the end is startling enough to make it work.

---