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Sabrina Fair (subtitled A Woman of the World) is a romantic comedy written by Samuel A. Taylor and produced by the Playwrights' Company. It ran on Broadway for a total of 318 performances, opening at the National Theatre on November 11, 1953. Directed by H. C. Potter, with sets and lights designed by Donald Oenslager, it starred Margaret Sullavan and Joseph Cotten, with Cathleen Nesbitt, John Cromwell, and Russell Collins in major supporting roles.
The critic for The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson, praised both the script and the production for its droll wit, writing that "One of the most attractive qualities of Sabrina Fair is the opportunity it provides for enjoying the foibles and crises of some fairly scrupulous human beings." For Atkinson, the play's clever dialogue placed it beyond a Cinderella romance and into the more exalted realm of high comedy, in the tradition of S. N. Behrman, Philip Barry, and W. Somerset Maugham.
The play has been adapted into two films, a 1954 version starring Audrey Hepburn and a 1995 remake with Julia Ormond.
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 stimulate her. He, of all the Larabees, is the one she is attracted by. When it is revealed that Sabrina's father has amassed a fortune on the stock market over the past decades, she wants to return to Paris, which she feels is her home. As her financial, as well as intellectual, equal, she falls in love with Linus.
The title cites John Milton's song from his masque Comus (1634), which is quoted in the play:
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 1928 comedy Holiday.
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