In the context of the placid decade of the 50’s, and its small
town mid-western setting, Picnic by
William Inge took on the daring theme of sexual repression. It also encapsulated classic literary themes
of the American Dream and disillusionment. Inge was from Kansas and the
characters he wrote about were emblazoned in his mind and empathetically
translated to drama.
It is a Pulitzer Prize winning play, well worth seeing
again, and it demands careful orchestration to bring a modern audience into
yesteryear and make this still relevant.
It doesn’t help that burnished in one’s mind is the movie version with
the woefully inappropriate, over-aged William Holden playing Hal, the young man
who energizes the action (as much as I admire Holden as a screen actor). But
Bill Hayes, the play’s director, has indeed avoided the “overly theatrical
approach” and stereotypical characters, to create more “realistic and complex
characters” with an ideal cast.
Inge prefaces his play with a Shakespearean quotation
from Sonnet 94: The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet. If you read the entire
Sonnet, particularly what follows that quotation, it establishes one of the
central themes of the play, a person is defined by his/her behavior, and there
are a number of choices made by the characters in the play that carry
significant consequences.
Picnic takes place in the shared yard – so often the
gathering point in neighborhoods of the 1950s when people actually connected with
one another-- of Flo Owens and Helen Potts. Upstage there is a fence that opens
to an alley and beyond that is a panorama of the town buildings. The set is very important in this intricately
arranged play, and scenic design has always been one of PBD’s many strong
points
Act I introduces the characters with only some mild hints
of what is about to unfold later. Mrs. Potts, the elder stateswoman of the
neighborhood, has given some work to a stranger in town, Hal Carter, a young down
on his luck drifter, in exchange for something to eat. He has jumped a freight train to this small
Kansas town to see his former college fraternity brother, who he considers his
last friend in the world, Alan Seymour, hoping to find a job through Alan’s
wealthy father. Hal had flunked out of
college (where he was a star athlete) and had tried unsuccessfully to make his
way in Hollywood. Hal, his shirtless
body on display for most of the first act, becomes a lightning rod for some of the
lonely women in the play. At first he is only casually noticed by Madge Owens the
high school homecoming queen who her mother, Flo, has been plotting for her to marry
Alan for the secure life of a country club belle.
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| Hal and Madge |
Hal is played by Merlin Huff, in his PBD debut, parading
his manly presence around the stage like a badge, stomping and posturing, yet
inwardly feeling totally insecure. It is a difficult role as Inge provides for
little nuance and character development. He is a free spirit, who is yearning to
become a “success” which nothing in his dysfunctional background has prepared
him to achieve.
His friend, Alan, is convincingly played by Taylor
Miller, also making his PBD debut, with his wholesomeness, and innate
confidence from having grown up in the “right” family and following their
expectations, only conscious of Madge’s desirability as a beauty. He looks up
to Hal as a rebel and admires his animal attraction to the women he encounters.
The key role of Flo, who is trying to orchestrate the
lives of her two daughters, hoping that they will marry well, is outstandingly played
by PBD veteran Patti Gardner, capturing her anxiety that her daughters should
not have disappointing lives as she’s had.
Flo’s husband had walked out on her after the birth of their second
child so she is very wary of a man such as Hal. She is a strong mother lion
guarding her cubs.
Alas, for Madge, she feels her beauty may be a detriment,
as revealed in an exchange between Madge and her mother in the first act:
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| Alan and Madge |
MADGE. What good
is it to be pretty?
FLO. Well…pretty
things…like flowers and sunsets and rubies… and pretty girls, too….they’re like
billboards telling us that life is good.
MADGE. But where do I come in?
FLO. What do you mean?
MADGE. Maybe I get tired being looked at.
FLO. Madge! Don’t talk so selfish!
MADGE. I don’t
care if I am selfish. It’s no good just
to be pretty. It’s no good!
Madge is played by the appropriately beautiful Kelly
Gibson, who portrays the essence of a young woman tottering on the brink of full
blown womanhood and what the future holds for her, trying to understand who she
is other than what the mirror and people tell her she is. There are constant references to that power
she holds over men, but in a sense she remains pure (a “summer flower” not
tarnished by “base infection” as Shakespeare puts it), trying to break out to
find something more relevant than her looks alone. As she says so poignantly in the second act
to her mother,
MADGE. It just seems that when I’m looking in the mirror
that’s the only way I can prove to myself I’m alive.
FLO. Alive?
MADGE. Yes. Lots
of the time I wonder if I really exist.
Flo’s boarder, Rosemary Sydney, is a school teacher, who
hangs out with two other unmarried teachers, and has a long-time beau, Howard
Bevans. The story of Rosemary’s and
Howard’s relationship is juxtaposed to the one which emerges between Hal and
Madge, two middle aged people, who have let their years slip by vs. the story
of youth and their expectations of the future.
Margery Lowe’s performance as Rosemary is terrific. She
is a woman who has had failed romances in the past and knows she is on the
precipice of spinsterhood, especially after seeing the young people she is
surrounded by, a desperation Lowe practically breathes from every pore. (And Lowe “cuts a mean rug” even after Rosemary
becomes intoxicated.)
Another PBD familiar face, Michael McKeever, undertakes
the role of the ambivalent Howard with an engaging homey affability. Fear of commitment shadows Howard who seems
set in his ways.
Those are the basic ingredients for Inge’s brew that
boils over in Act II as the town’s annual Labor Day picnic is about to take
place. Madge’s slightly younger, brainy,
tom-boyish sister Millie has no date and Mrs. Potts (to Flo’s horror) suggests that
Hal becomes Millie’s escort. Millie
suddenly becomes obsessed with her looks as well (deeply jealous of the
attention her sister commands) although throughout most of the play she remains
true to her intellectual stand-offish self.
In a sense she represents Inge’s presence in the play. (She is reading
Carson McCullers The Ballad of the Sad
Café, which in some ways parallels the play.) Maren Searle, makes her PBD
debut as a Millie and is on stage most of the time, maturing right before our
eyes, and while she fights with her older sister, she deeply loves her as well.
Searle brings an acting maturity to her role of a sixteen-year old.
Meanwhile, poor Hal, as much as he tries to “fit in” with
everyone, he just seems to say the wrong thing and becomes self conscious about
everything he’s about to say. In a
sense, he’s an innocent, another “summer flower.”It doesn’t help that his
friend Alan has indeed offered him a job, but as the lowest manual laborer
which Alan does not let Hal forget.
Still Hal wears his optimism, tempered by humiliation, on his shirtless
sleeve.
Hal has Mrs. Potts, – so amiably and skillfully played by the
seasoned PBD actress Elizabeth Dimon -- in stitches telling stories about his
father – who he obviously loved in spite of his alcoholism and jail time. Mrs. Potts, her mother’s caretaker who we
only hear offstage, sees the inherent goodness in Hal and accepts his youthful,
manly countenance without the criticism or jealousy of the other mature women. Perhaps that is because of her own impetuous
love affair when she was very young resulted in a marriage that her own mother had
annulled only 24 hours later. She understands the urges of youth and acts as an
observer, and a reconciler of some of the ensuing conflict.
Howard produces a bottle of liquor to share before the
picnic, the truth serum which particularly Rosemary has more than a swig of,
erupting in a vicious attack of Hal, and everything he represents – youth and
freedom. – culminating in her direct accusation:
ROSEMARY. ….You’re just a piece of Arkansas white
trash! And braggin about your
father! And I’ll bet he wasn’t any
better’n you are! I’ll bet you lose that
job before your two weeks is up….You think just ‘cause you’re young you can
push the old folks aside. You’ll end
your life in the gutter and it’ll serve you right ‘cause the gutter’s where you
belong.
Howard puts a stop
to the tirade.
Hal and Madge finally make an electrically charged connection
at the end of the second act and cannot take their hands off each other, kissing
passionately all over the yard, on the porch, in front of the shed. However, they now have to face the headwinds
of Flo’s disapproval, not to mention Alan who becomes insanely jealous and feels
utterly betrayed by both.
Act III takes place the morning after the picnic. Everything has changed. Madge and Hal returned late in Alan’s
car. Alan has the police now looking for
Hal on the trumped up charge that his car was stolen. Flo is outraged.
Rosemary has seen her future and does not like the vision
of old lady spinster she knows she will become; she has begged Howard to marry
her and before Howard knows what has happened he has been railroaded into a
future he never thought would become real, although, deep down, he does love
Rosemary.
Hal plans to flee on the freight train that can be heard
in the distance, urging Madge to come with him, telling her where to look for
him in Tulsa. He sees in Madge “the only
real thing I ever had,” and he imagines a life with her, settling down, perhaps
buying a farm, a future. Their
relationship is different than the others, based on strong sexual desire and
the unbounded optimism of youth. Hal is no longer the drifter.
In spite of Flo’s disappointment and objections, Madge
follows on the next bus. Flo’s neighbor,
Helen Potts, has to restrain Flo who still can’t believe that her beautiful
daughter could be throwing away her life, but Madge has opted for HER life, as
Rosemary did.
That freight train whistle is a constant leitmotiv in the
play, a reminder of a vast nation with sprawling opportunities, at the heart of
the American Dream. Hal arrives and
departs via that beckoning train. From Inge’s description of the setting before
the beginning of the play: Far off, the whistle of a train is heard
coming to town. It is a happy promising sound.
And near the beginning of the play, these exchanges
between the Owens women foreshadow much of the play:
MADGE: Whenever I hear that train coming into town, I
always get a feeling of excitement….in here. (Hugging her stomach)
MILLIE: Whenever I hear it, I tell myself someday I’m
going to get on that train and I’m going to go to New York.
FLO: That Train only goes as far as Tulsa.
MILLIE: Well, in Tulsa I could catch another train.
MADGE: I always wonder, maybe some wonderful person is
getting off here, just by accident, and he’ll come into the dime store for
something and see me behind the counter…
Interesting that Dramaworks’ season opens with this
classic play, as it did last year with Our
Town, a play with which it shares many characteristics, simple but direct
fundamental themes unfolding in a small-town setting, superbly staged and
acted. Clearly this where Dramaworks
excels, in the details of the staging.
It is a complicated production, even requiring a choreographer,
Michelle Petrucci, for the sexy and disturbing dance number on the crowded
stage in Act II.
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| Set Under Construction |
There can never be enough praise for scenic design by
Michael Amico, and the set for Picnic is
spot on, exactly as Inge required, and even for PBD’s relatively new home and
larger stage, must have been a challenge for Mr. Amico. Challenge accepted and achieved!
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| Finished Picnic Set |
Costume design is by Brian O'Keefe who did not want to
use stock dresses, hand crafting more than a dozen for the show, with Madge’s
blue dress requiring 60 hours of work!
More about the devil is in the detail: the lighting
design by Donald Edmund Thomas, something the audience might take for granted,
was carefully planned to be in sync with the costumes and as the play takes
place within 24 hours, the morning sunrise light begins on stage left, moves
overhead during the day, and “sets” stage right. There are a number of “wake up”
changes of light and there are some eighty lighting cues in the production.
The music (all original scores) and sound design are by
Steve Brush, perfectly setting the tone and mood of the production. I loved the opening which indeed captured the
morning of a late summer day, the sun coming up; the whistle of a train in the
distance, a barking dog, and then the play unfolds. At night the sound of crickets
fill the theatre.
Although in minor roles, special mention should be made
of Julie Rowe and Natalia Coego who play Rosemary’s unmarried schoolteacher friends, a kind of Greek chorus, one younger
than Rosemary who teaches, what else, feminine hygiene (sounds very 50s to me)
and the other, an older woman who reminds Rosemary what she might easily become.
And kudos to young Riley Anthony who plays Bomber, the newspaper boy who
unmercifully teases Millie, and naturally is gaga over Madge (although even his
opinion of Madge changes at the end).
This is a huge undertaking for a regional theatre,
flawlessly directed by Bill Hayes who obviously has a great rapport with his
actors and behind-the scenes technicians – a promising start to Dramaworks’ new
season.
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| Leading Cast Members |
