Theater Review: ‘Picnic’

By Gabriella Ayres | Reporter

Theatre Palisades’ revival of William Inge’s award-winning 1953 Broadway drama “Picnic” opened on Jan. 13.

It’s a drama rooted in regret and the impermanence of youth, a melancholic snapshot of an aging Kansas town where novelty is a concept both feared and coveted.

A quaint backyard shared between friendly neighbors sets the stage for the entirety of this production. Charming and transportive, the beautifully crafted set design paints a believable location for the actors to perform.

Krystyna Ahlers stars as Madge Owens—the wide-eyed, peachy blonde with worldly desperation. Thrown in reverie whenever a distant train whistle sounds, “Madge the Beauty”—as she’s commonly dubbed by her younger, boyish sister Millie—yearns to escape from her “womanly duties.”

Millie Owens, played by debut actress Jessica Mason, is a highly ambitious student with little interest in party gowns. Struck by a yearning of her own, Millie longs to be liberated from the gilded shadow of her older sister.

On the morning before the historically raucous Labor Day picnic is scheduled to commence, a drifter—and our allegorical representation of desire—rolls in by railway.

Hal Carter, performed by Pierson Playhouse’s twice appearing Nicholas Dostal, is taken in by Helen Potts, the Owens’ undersexed next-door neighbor.

Hal, who is in town to visit his old friend Alan Seymour—who just so happens to be Madge’s well-to-do boyfriend—finds himself instantly smitten by the Kansas beauty queen.

Madge and Millie’s mother Flo Owens, played by the captivating Sue Hardie, is the classic characterization of a mother living through her daughter’s youth. With a watchful eye, the distrustful mother seems to be the only woman in Kansas who isn’t enchanted by the newcomer’s oiled exterior.

Seeking contentment in bottomless jars of cold-cream, Rosemary Sydney is the self described “old-maid schoolteacher” (a kind of lost soul familiar to Inge from his Kansas boardinghouse youth) seeking desperately her “ever after” from stodgy beau Howard—Rosemary’s last chance for happiness before her antediluvian descent into untouchability.

Embodied by actress Wendy Taubin, Rosemary is a hot and feisty serving of comic relief.

In one boozy, lascivious night of fun—these Kansas townswomen throw modesty to the wind as they scream, cry, curse and romp before the eyes men.

The result? Love—as we all know—is no walk in the park.

Still, in its intended aim, Inge’s “Picnic” will arouse the spirits of even the most sexually repressed.

It did so on Broadway in 1953, in a Hollywood movie with William Holden and Kim Novak in 1955, as a musical called “Hot September” in the 1960s and a TV blockbuster with Jennifer Jason Leigh in 1986. People love the sinners, even if they hate the sin.

So, come watch as this God-fearing town encounters its first “sinful” spark of feminine lust.

“Picnic” is at the Pierson Playhouse through Feb. 19. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit theatrepalisades.com.