Inge, << ihnj, >> William (1913-1973), was an American playwright. His best plays are realistic psychological studies of ordinary people in small Midwestern towns. They show that deep feelings of hope, fear, or desire can lie below the surface of quiet lives and block individual fulfillment until such frustrations are released and brought to the surface.
Come Back, Little Sheba (1950) sympathetically examines the unfortunate lives of an alcoholic chiropractor and his wife. The couple’s weaknesses feed upon each other until the two people finally learn to face them. Picnic (1953) shows how the repressed romantic dreams of several women are brought to a crisis when a handsome wanderer comes to town. The play won a Pulitzer Prize. In Bus Stop (1955), Inge treated in a lighter manner the dreams and yearnings of a group of people in a highway diner. The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957) centers on the loneliness of family members who cannot communicate with each other. Inge was born on May 13, 1913, in Independence, Kansas. He died on June 10, 1973.
