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Sierra Madre Playhouse's "Picnic" Is a Satisfying Outing
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Amanda Arbues, Fran McCreary, Elise Gould and Allen Cutler. Photo by John Johnson.
"Picnic" is about desperate times and desperate women looking for men to help guide them toward their future. The Sierra Madre Playhouse's production has the claustrophobic feel of women confined by their gender and social roles, but not all of the portrayals mesh well.
Although entitled "Picnic," the play never takes us to an actual picnic. We only see the preparations for a Labor Day picnic in the 1950s. Hal (Allen Cutler), a former college football star, failed actor and currently unemployed drifter, blows into the small town, looking for his former fraternity brother, Alan (Jon Snow). He works for his breakfast, doing chores for the spinster, Mrs. Potts (Sandra Hakman). Potts was only briefly married--her mother fetched her back and had the marriage annulled. She now cares for her mother (whom we hear but never see), but keeps the name of her former husband. She opines that making cakes and pies are the only way a woman like her can get the attention of men at the town picnic.
Living nearby and sharing the same yard, is the widowed Mrs. Owens (Fran McCreary), her pretty daughter Madge (Amanda Arbues) and her smart daughter Millie (Elise Gould). Madge is the small town beauty that every man admires, but she's going steady with the reliable but dull Alan whose father is wealthy. Mrs. Owens sees this as their opportunity for financial security, but Madge isn't comfortable with his set of friends and social class. The Owens also have a boarder, a middle-aged teacher, Rosemary (Nancy Lantis), who has a beau living in another town, Howard (Jack Chansler).
Howard brings some illegal whiskey for a before-picnic swig and that sets off an unfortunate chain of events. Rosemary makes a pass at Hal. Millie gets sick and Madge makes a pass at Hal that is enthusiastically reciprocated.
William Inge won a 1953 Pulitzer Prize for drama and the original Broadway cast included the late Paul Newman--not as the hunk, but as the rich man's son who doesn't get the girl. Joshua Logan won a Tony for Best Director. Newman would eventually take over the role of Hal. The 1955 movie starred Cliff Robertson as Alan, Kim Novak as Madge and William Holden as Hal.
Although somewhat dated, this play still has meaning: Don't we all know someone culturally stuck in the 1950s? Women waiting to be saved by a man?
As Millie, Gould is a bit too screechy and wears a bit too much make up before her attempt to transform into an attractive date for Hal. Yet she shows some great comedic skills. Arbues is a large, buxom woman with a beautiful mane of long straight brown hair and she is convincingly pulled toward Cutler's Hal while her chemistry with Snow's Alan is as lukewarm as you would want.
Hakman directs this play with sensitivity and a lot more levity than usual. This cast, of course, can't equal the 1955 movie cast and one wonders how Newman was in either role. Yet the cast does a respectable job. Set designer Eric White's stage has a faded, washed out look and costume designer Leisel Quamie contrasts the every day drabness of Flo and Mrs. Potts and Millie, with the more showy Madge and the overly fashionable school teachers.
If you're a woman in the romantic dumps, this might not be the play to see. Yet if you want to see where women have been and can identify with Millie, the smart gal who is going to college and a bit prematurely foreswears love, then you might find this a milestone showing where women come forward from.
"Picnic," Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Dark March 15. $12-$20. Ends April 11.
Other articles by Jana J. Monji:
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