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Sweet Sue is a play byA. R. Gurney. It premiered at theWilliamstown Theatre Festival and later enjoyed aBroadway production at theMusic Box Theatre during the 1986-87 season.
The play requires four actors for its two characters, Susan Weatherhill, a repressed and uncertain woman in her late forties, and Jake, a young man who is thecollege roommate of Susan's son. Each of these characters is played simultaneously by two actors, who give expression to the characters' internal tensions and ambivalence. The script refers to them as: "Susan", "Susan Too", "Jake", and "Jake Too". This technique of dividing a single character between two actors is not unique toSweet Sue; it can also be found inOvertones (1913 and 1929) byAlice Gerstenberg[citation needed],Getting Out (1979) byMarsha Norman[citation needed], andPassion (1981) byPeter Nichols[citation needed]. Here, Gurney uses it to create an atmosphere of lightromantic comedy, punctuated by moments of unease.[citation needed]
Gurney has explained that the play was initially meant to be a modern treatment of the classical tale ofPhaedra and her desire for a younger man, but turned into a summer romance, with Susan's struggling with problems of self-esteem, artistic integrity, and sexual attraction to a man young enough to be her son.[1] Reviewers tended to dismiss the play as superficial and far from Gurney's best[citation needed], but it ran for six months on Broadway, due in part to the casting of the two Sues with the popular actorsMary Tyler Moore andLynn Redgrave.[citation needed]