In this review of a 1984 revival production of Come Back, Little Sheba, Henry offers a favorable appraisal of the play and reaffirms Inge's place among America's best playwrights.

When Come Back. Little Sheba opened on Broadway in 1950, critics hailed its author, William Inge, as an authentic voice of the plain people west of the Mississippi. He burnished his reputation for passionate simplicity with Picnic (winner of a 1953 Pulitzer Prize), Bus Stop (1955) and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957). Never a master of plot or construction, Inge   was incomparably tender, a poet laureate of adolescent sexuality and middle-aged longing. An honored place in theater history seemed assured. Then all went sour. Flop followed flop; drink and depression overtook him. When he committed suicide in 1973, the New York Times obituary appraised him as a man who had "lost his gift. "Gift there was, however, and after...