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Masterplots, Fourth Edition

Bus Stop

by Jill Stapleton-Bergeron, R. Baird Shuman, Jill Stapleton-Bergeron

First produced: 1955; first published, 1955

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Comedy

Time of plot: 1950’s

Locale: Thirty miles west of Kansas City, Kansas

The Story:

The phones are out of order at a street-corner restaurant on a snowy early morning thirty miles from Kansas City. It is 1:00 a.m., and restaurant proprietor Grace Hoylard and her teenage waitress Elma Duckworth await the arrival of the Kansas City-to-Wichita bus. Will Masters, the local sheriff, comes in to tell Grace that the blizzard has closed the roads; the bus will need to stop at the restaurant until further notice. The bus arrives, and passengers enter the restaurant. They will be marooned together until just before sunrise.

Cherie, a young woman in flashy clothes and wearing too much makeup, asks Sheriff Will for protection from a cowboy who is still on the bus. Cherie claims that the cowboy had abducted her from her job as a singer at the Blue Dragon nightclub in Kansas City. Dr. Gerald Lyman, an alcoholic has-been college professor in his fifties, makes a connection with Elma. Carl, the bus driver, shares a flirtation with Grace at the counter. Cherie tells Elma about her job as a chanteuse, or nightclub singer, and about her family background. Carl and Will have a brief exchange that establishes some information about Lyman, then Carl announces he is going for a long walk, which Will finds hard to believe, given the blizzard. The look between Carl and Grace, however, reveals that something is up between them.

Lyman quotes poetry to Elma, and they converse about William Shakespeare with Cherie. The door to the restaurant swings open, revealing a young cowboy, Bo Decker, and his older friend, Virgil Blessing, who is carrying Bo’s guitar case. Arguments ensue between Bo and Will about closing the door and between Bo and Cherie about her name—is it or is it not Cherry? Virgil tries to warn Bo not to antagonize the sheriff, but Bo is headstrong, launching into a tirade about his ranch and his prowess at the rodeo. He then orders food and sits at the counter to talk to Cherie. He hugs and kisses her roughly, which embarrasses Cherie, and demonstrates his arrogance and lack of manners. Grace excuses herself to her apartment, complaining of a headache.

Lyman begins to tell Elma about his first wife, and Bo demands to know why Cherie’s suitcase is hidden behind the counter; she tries to evade him. Will intercedes, allowing Cherie to tell Bo the truth: that she is not interested in him. Bo refuses to acknowledge this. He reveals that they have been “familiar” with each other, so, he reasons, she has to marry him; still she refuses. Will promises Cherie she will not have to go with Bo on the bus. Virgil takes Bo aside and tries to calm him down. Bo is bewildered that any woman would not love him.

Dr. Lyman tries to impress Elma with his vast learning and experience and arranges to meet her in Topeka the following day. Bo reveals to Virgil the loneliness he has been feeling. Cherie tells Elma about her life and begins to realize that marrying Bo might be a reasonable choice, despite her reluctance. Elma encourages the passengers to put on a floor show to pass the time. Virgil plays his guitar, and Dr. Lyman and Elma reenact the balcony scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (pr. c. 1595-1596, pb. 1597), during which time Lyman, overcome with intoxication, passes out.

Cherie sings “That Old Black Magic,” inflaming Bo’s passion to the point that he lifts her off her feet. Will comes to her rescue by lunging at Bo, enabling Cherie to free herself. Bo and Will move outside to engage in fisticuffs, as Grace enters the restaurant in her dressing gown. Outside, Will finally subdues Bo, slapping handcuffs on him. Lyman wakes up long enough to go to the restroom, and Virgil convinces Cherie not to press charges. He reveals to her that she is the first woman Bo has ever made love to. Cherie seems to be touched by Bo’s naïveté.

It is now early morning, around 5:00. Carl and Grace had spent time together in Grace’s apartment upstairs. Will announces that the highway will soon be cleared. He then explains to Bo that a person does not have a right to get whatever he wants, until he earns it. At Will’s urging, Bo apologizes to everyone, offering money to Cherie to return to Kansas City. Bo shows genuine humility, which softens Cherie’s attitude toward him and leads her to decide to go with him to Montana. Virgil, knowing that Bo will be happy with Cherie and that he will be in their way, lies to Bo, telling him that he has taken another job.

Carl reveals to Grace that Lyman has been in trouble many times for getting involved with girls. Will teases Carl and Grace about their rendezvous, which embarrasses Grace in front of Elma, who later assures her not to worry about it. Lyman appears to feel remorse for his inappropriate attention to Elma and begs off their meeting in Topeka; he goes outside to the bus. Bo and Cherie bid everyone good-bye and leave happily. Grace sets about closing the restaurant as the bus pulls away. She sends Elma home and sends Virgil outside so she can go to bed. Virgil has no idea where he will go next. Grace takes one last look around the restaurant and turns off the lights.

Critical Evaluation:

Bus Stop is an expanded version of William Inge’s one-act play People in the Wind (pb. 1962), which enjoyed both popular and critical success, having more Broadway performances than any of his other plays. Critics praised his abilities to accurately capture the flavor of the American Midwest in his diction and multidimensional characters, who ache with loneliness, without sentimentality.

In interviews, Inge stated that he viewed the play as an experiment in which he could examine different kinds of love, from innocence to depravity, and thought of Bus Stop as a comedy. Bo’s undisciplined, yet well-intended behavior creates most of the humor in the play, and this combination of homespun wit with the pathos of the characters likely accounts for the play’s continuing popularity over time.

Like his earlier works, Inge examines themes of loneliness along with the connection between love and sex. Overt references to sexual activity include Carl and Grace’s casual affair during the course of the play, Bo’s reference to being “familiar” with Cherie, and the undercurrent of immorality in Dr. Lyman’s advances toward Elma. With the sexually repressed climate of the 1950’s, many critics of the time objected to the play’s preoccupation with sex, most of which is omitted from the film version (for which Inge did not write the screenplay). Biographer R. Baird Shuman argues that Inge’s use of sex in the play is not crass, however, but rather an effective way to reveal the alienation humans experience in the search for genuine love and acceptance. Inge succeeds in underscoring his dialogue with a profound sense of loneliness and longing for love.

This search for love and authentic human connection constitutes the main theme of the play. All the characters, with the exception of Will, refer in some way to their own sense of isolation. Grace tells Elma in the first few moments of the play that without the restaurant, she would go crazy with loneliness, and despite his bravado, Bo confesses to Virgil that “in the last few months, I been so lonesome, I . . . I jest didn’t know what t’do with m’self.” Although the other characters do not make explicit reference to being alone, it is suggested in their situations. Cherie, separated from most of her family by a flood, wants to appear strong and independent, but her revelations to Elma about her future prospects show Cherie to be a lonely young woman looking for a man to truly love her and not use her as a sexual object. Elma suggests that if Cherie only loved Bo, it would not be so bad to go with him to Montana, but adds “If you don’t love him, it’d be awfully lonely.” Lyman, too selfish to submit himself to true love, has three failed marriages and an unsuccessful teaching career. Knowing his attraction to girls is inappropriate, he lives a forlorn existence, traveling from one place to another in an attempt to escape the authorities. He chooses to remain in a drunken state, unable to bear the pain of his own depravity but incapable or unwilling to make any changes in his character.

The dialogue never clearly establishes whether or not Carl is married, but driving a bus is certainly a solitary profession. Inge hints in the play that other bus drivers have told Carl that Grace may be “agreeable” and that he is taking advantage of her loneliness. In the play’s final act, Grace seems happy to have an occasional fling with Carl without the burden of commitment. This echoes Grace’s earlier line to Elma about the loneliness she felt in her marriage when she says “makin’ love is one thing, and bein’ lonesome is another.” When Will makes it clear that Carl and Grace have spent some time upstairs together, however, Grace is embarrassed, fearing Elma might think worse of her. Grace justifies her actions by explaining that she is restless and has to have a man occasionally, “just to keep m’self from gettin’ grouchy.” Even Elma—young, smart, and curious—reveals her sadness in not having any boyfriends. The unspoken implication is that Elma does not have a date for the school prom or for a Saturday night movie.

Inge portrays Virgil, Bo’s longtime friend and father figure, as the most tragic of all the characters. To care for Bo, he has given up his chances of finding someone to love, and at the end of the play is left completely alone—literally out in the cold. It is almost inconceivable that Grace, a warm and compassionate woman, would not offer Virgil the option of waiting inside for the next bus, but Inge carefully plots the play in such a way that Grace and Virgil have no contact until the end—she never had a chance to get to know him. She is exhausted and wants to go to bed, but cannot chance leaving the restaurant unlocked, so she is forced to put him out. Had Carl not been interested in Grace, the play might have ended with her taking Virgil in, which would have made a much tidier and happier ending for the play. Inge rejects the happy ending, however, bringing a more honest and sardonic tone to Bus Stop that resonates beneath the action of the play, raising it above the level of trivial romantic comedy.

Because Bus Stop, however well-crafted, is considered largely predictable, it did not win any major awards, and most critics do not consider Inge a great playwright, even though he garnered the Pulitzer Prize with his play Picnic (pr., pb. 1953). No one can dispute, however, the overwhelming popularity of Bus Stop in not only the 1950’s but also the twenty-first century.

The humor and romance between Bo and Cherie take central focus in the play, but Inge’s gifts as a playwright rest most comfortably in his use of subplots and his creation of intricate and distinctive minor characters who are shaped with such compassion for their frailties that audiences are immediately drawn to them. The heavier, more complicated relationships of the supporting characters give Bus Stop a deeper meaning that speaks directly to the human heart about loneliness and the infinite search for meaningful connections, which accounts for the play’s longevity in American theater.

Further Reading

1 

Adler, Thomas P. American Drama, 1940-1960: A Critical History. New York: Twayne, 1994. A solid overview of important post-World War II works and playwrights, providing information about Inge and his place as a dramatist among his peers.

2 

Greenwald, Michael. “’[Our] Little Company of the Odd and the Lonely’: Tennessee Williams’ ’Personality’ in the Plays of William Inge.” In The Influence of Tennessee Williams: Essays on Fifteen American Playwrights, edited by Philip C. Kolin. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2008. The essay on Inge discusses his relationship with Tennessee Williams and the possible impact that connection had on their respective works.

3 

Inge, William. “Interview with William Inge.” In Behind the Scenes: Theatre and Film Interviews from the “Transatlantic Review,” edited by Joseph F. McCrindle. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. A seven-page interview with Inge that is searching and revealing. It provides valuable insights into Inge’s major dramas, including Bus Stop.

4 

Johnson, Jeff. William Inge and the Subversion of Gender: Rewriting Stereotypes in the Plays, Novels, and Screenplays. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2005. Examines Inge’s depiction of gender, focusing on the patterns of gender-role reversals, which Inge uses for dramatic effect and to subvert social expectations. Includes an analysis of Bus Stop.

5 

Kansas Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1986). This entire issue of Kansas Quarterly is devoted to Inge. The dozen articles cover most of his plays and both of his novels. Although no single article is devoted to Bus Stop, at least half of the articles provide some interpretive consideration of the play.

6 

Leeson, Richard M. William Inge: A Research and Production Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Includes a discussion of Inge’s life and career, as well as plot summaries, production histories, and critical overviews of his plays.

7 

Shuman, R. Baird. William Inge. 2d ed. New York: Twayne, 1989. Offers a complete reevaluation of all of Inge’s plays and his two novels. Includes a major interpretive section on Bus Stop.

8 

Voss, Ralph F. A Life of William Inge: The Strains of Triumph. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989. Perhaps the most thorough critical biography of Inge. Voss’s analytical considerations of all the plays are strong, and his comments on Bus Stop have particular merit.

9 

Wertheim, Albert. “Dorothy’s Friend in Kansas: The Gay Inflections of William Inge.” In Staging Desire: Queer Readings of American Theater History, edited by Kim Marra and Robert A. Schanke. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. Analyzes the depiction of sexuality in the work of Inge and other figures who made their mark in the American theater before 1969, the year the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City accelerated the gay and lesbian rights movement.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Stapleton-Bergeron, Jill, and R. Baird Shuman, and Jill Stapleton-Bergeron. "Bus Stop." Masterplots, Fourth Edition, edited by Laurence W. Mazzeno, Salem Press, 2010. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=MP4_12709820000046.
APA 7th
Stapleton-Bergeron, J., & Shuman, R. B., & Stapleton-Bergeron, J. (2010). Bus Stop. In L. W. Mazzeno (Ed.), Masterplots, Fourth Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Stapleton-Bergeron, Jill and Shuman, R. Baird and Stapleton-Bergeron, Jill. "Bus Stop." Edited by Laurence W. Mazzeno. Masterplots, Fourth Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2010. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.