The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

Here we find Rubin, a traveling salesman for a harness firm, Cora his sensitive and lovely wife, Sonny their little boy and Reenie their teen-age daughter...

The plot of Mr Inge's comedy drama is less one story than a series of short stories--the fight between a husband and wife; the fear of an overly shy young girl on going to a dance; the problems of an introverted little boy who feels that the whole world, including his family is against him; the outwardly peaceful and inwardly corroding marriage of Cora's rowdy sister; the tragedy of a military school cadet whose mother has never provided him with a home and who suffers from the stigma of being a Jew in an alien community.

What Mr Inge is saying, with a power and tenderness of speech, is that there is dark at the top of everyone's stairs, but that it can be dissipated by understanding, by tolerance, by compassion and by the brand of companionship that demands not conformity but love ... For Mr Inge has made in his play a statement of faith for all people who, if they accepted it, would live in a far better world" ~ Oppenheimer