Sabrina Fair - Plot

Plot

Sabrina Fairchild is the daughter of a chauffeur to the wealthy Larrabee family, who live in a mansion on the North Shore of Long Island. Returning from a stay in Paris after working as the private secretary to the "Assistant Economic Commissioner Office of Special Representative for Europe Economic Cooperation Administration", she presents herself as a young woman of beauty, charm, incredible sophistication and zest for living, so different from the domestic's daughter the family had largely ignored. She proclaims her desire "to do everything and see everything, sense everything; to know that life is an enormous experience and must be used. To be in the world, and of the world, and never stand aside and watch." Although she once had a crush on David Larrabee, the young playboy of the family, and returns to America with a wealthy French suitor in tow, she finds herself drawn to Linus Larrabee, whose intelligence, lack of sentimentality, and knowledge of the world stimulates her. She, out of all the Larabee's sees something about Linus. When it's revealed that Sabrina's father has amassed a fortune on the stock market over the past decades, she wants to return to Paris that she feels is her home. Linus as her financial, as well as intellectual, equal causes her to fall in love permenetly with Linus.

The title cites John Milton's song from his masque Comus (1634), which is quoted in the play:

Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save.

With its patrician setting, witty dialogue, and development of a romantic plot between two clever and committed idealists across class lines, Sabrina Fair has much in common with Philip Barry's comedy Holiday.