Playwright: William Inge
At: Griffin Theatre Company
Phone: (773) 769-2228: $20
Runs through: Nov. 23
By Jonathan Abarbanel
The hugely successful 1950's playwright William Inge (Bus Stop, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, Come Back, Little Sheba) once was esteemed alongside Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Thornton Wilder among modern authors, but Inge has not withstood the last half-century well. His plays are entertaining enough and his language does not date them (as does Eugene O'Neill's), but Inge's work lacks weight. He wrote domestic dramas about little people. His oft-repeated themes of loneliness and longing certainly are universal, but they are about one person relating to another and not about mankind relating to his larger environment. Inge asks no cosmic questions, as do Williams, Miller and Wilder at their best.
Inge's 1953 Picnic is set on Labor Day in a stifling Kansas town, where widow Flo Owen hopes her adolescent daughters will do better than she did. But Flo imagines nothing more for beautiful, 18-year-old Madge than early marriage to the town banker's son. The plan disintegrates with the arrival of Hal, a primitive but worldly young hunk, who seduces Madge by nightfall. A secondary plot involves an earthy, old maid schoolmarm, Rosemary, with one last shot at marriage.
The Griffin revival is a pleasant one, decently acted and staged, but it makes clear the play's shallowness. Jonthan Berry's smooth-but-youthful direction reinforces Inge's compulsion to spell out each emotional beat on the surface, leaving no dots for the audience to connect and providing little subtext for the actors. Most characters in Picnic are desperate, one way or another, but Berry does not plumb that quiet—and varying—desperation lurking beneath the surface. As a result, neither play nor production is subtle, while the play's narrow social order traps it in another, non-contemporary time.
As Hal, lean Josh Bywater looks every inch the charismatic drifter but postures too much. Hal needn't flaunt his animal magnetism. Smoldering sexuality is far more alluring than open flame. Besides, it's not what Hal does or doesn't do, but how he is perceived by others. Is Hal victimizer or victim? The user or the used? This shifting perspective—Hal as an icon—is what director Berry fails to grasp. Katie Flahive as Madge more than looks the role, but is a bit too cool and regal for a teenage girl. Loosen up. Good, fresh work from Dina Connolly as kid sis Millie. Nice variety from Patricia Donegan (Flo), Penny Slusher (Rosemary) and cagey Melissa Riemer (Mrs. Potts). Capable supporting work all around.
The bleached-out set literally airs dirty linens in public, while the neutral costume palette is broken only by the pastel dresses of Madge and Millie. These are interesting choices, although to what purpose I'm not sure.