Home > Bus Stop Summary & Study Guide

Bus Stop | Introduction

When William Inge’s play, Bus Stop, opened on Broadway March 2, 1955, it was an immediate commercial and critical success. Based on Inge’s earlier one-act play, People in the Wind, Bus Stop involves a pair of young lovers and their struggle to find love in the modern world.

Unlike his earlier two plays, Come Back, Little Sheba and Picnic, this work is not an in-depth study of relationships. Instead, it is considered a superficial romantic comedy. As most critics assert, Bus Stop simply lacks the depth of Inge’s earlier work.

Inge’s focus on the main couple—the nightclub singer, Cherie, and the brash cowboy, Bo—inspired more controversy. As critics complained that the other six characters in the play remain undeveloped and fail to hold the audience’s attention or sympathy, Inge reasserted his hope that the audience would be interested in every character. His aim was to portray the full spectrum of romantic relationships, from positive to negative, in his work.

Bus Stop Summary

Act I
As the play opens, Grace and Elma anticipate the arrival of the bus and its passengers at the bus stop. The two women are waitresses at the diner, and as they wait for customers they discuss romance, or the lack of it: Grace has been married, but her husband left her; Elma is single and lonely. The sheriff, Will, comes into the diner and announces that the snowstorm has closed the roads and the bus and its passengers will be stuck at the diner until the road is cleared.

Almost immediately, the bus pulls in to the diner. A young blond woman, Cherie, enters. She is scared and trying to hide from a fellow passenger, Bo. Dr. Lyman and the bus driver, Carl, walk into the diner. It becomes obvious that Grace and Carl are interested in one another, and after a whispered conversation, they contrive reasons to leave and, presumably, meet secretly upstairs in Grace’s apartment. Meanwhile, Dr. Lyman is obviously drunk, circumspect, and suspicious.

Eventually, Bo and Virgil enter the diner. Bo believes that he is in love with Cherie; moreover, he has practically kidnapped her with the intent of marrying her. Act I ends with a confrontation between Will and Bo, who learns that Cherie has sought the protection of the sheriff. Bo is shocked to learn that Cherie, or any other woman, might be able to resist his charms.

Act II
Act II opens with Dr. Lyman beginning his seduction of Elma. He arranges to meet her later in Topeka, where she will be attending a symphony. Elma is too innocent to recognize that Dr. Lyman’s intentions are less than honorable.

Cherie reveals to Elma that she... » Complete Bus Stop Summary