When Come Back, Little Sheba opened on Broadway in February of 1950, it was to mixed reviews. Most critics cheered the performances of Shirley Booth and Sydney Blackmer in the lead roles. But all too many deplored the actors' waste in a play described as "dramatic trivialities" (Howard Bames in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews) and "underwritten to the point of barrenness" (Brooks Atkinson in his second New York Times review two weeks after the play's opening). Barnes and Atkinson were not alone. Commonweal's Kappo Phelan labeled Inge 's drama "a poor play on all counts," and in a review Written for the New Yorker, Wolcott Gibbs called attention to the play's mix of "realism and psychiatric claptrap.' , Yet not all Critics hated the play; many liked it and many more had mixed reactions. Atkinson, in his first review for the New York Times, noted the...