Triad Stage has opened their “Season Together” with a winner! Their production of William Inge’s “Picnic” was energetic and moving, comedic and heartbreaking, much like the human condition.

The adjoining back yard of middle-aged Flo Owens and Helen Potts is where all the action takes place in “Picnic”. The set took me right back to my childhood growing up in a small town. All we see of the somewhat shabby white houses are the small back porches, and a few windows. The two families are connected, symbolically as well as literally, by clothes lines hung with towels, tablecloths and dishrags, and complete with pulleys. It’s wonderfully evocative of the small town atmosphere, where countless dramas have been played out in backyards in front of watching and listening neighbors. The yard itself, set off with worn white picket fences, and furnished with rusting metal furniture, is actually constructed with real sod, quite dead, as befits the end of a long hot Kansas summer. There are even weeds at the fence-posts and along the sides of the houses. The Kansas sky is represented by large white squares, appropriately clothes-pinned to the rafters, and sprinkled with twinkling stars when needed. Scenic designer Howard C. Jones has done a fine job with this set.

The costumes, from dresses to hair-dos to Alan’s high-waisted pants were authentic fifties apparel. Shirtwaists, mothers in aprons, and ladies in hats all contribute to the period atmosphere.

Director Preston Lane has also done a fine job, leading his troupe to delve into the truths that Inge has woven into his story. What seems at first like an innocent tale of young love and a small-town tradition quickly becomes more. When life is moving along at a sedate and measured pace, and we think we know the path ahead, something or someone comes along and shakes up all our preconceived ideas, and shows us that we are not what we think we are. There is more to us, and more desires in us, than we knew. We are forced to face reality in a new way, and it may show us things about ourselves we didn’t want to see.

Madge Owens is the golden girl, the most beautiful girl in her small town. Everyone, from her mother on down the line, has her life planned out--she’ll marry Alan Seymour and live happily ever after. Madge isn’t so sure about that. The sound of the train whistle is a siren call for her, and she wants to follow that call. She wants to feel real, not like a doll. Her little sister Millie has her own problems—being smart isn’t necessarily a good thing for a young woman in the early 1950’s. Sibling rivalry rears its ugly head, too, with the plaintive cry, “Do you love her more than me?” Then Hal arrives. As Helen Potts says in the last scene, “As soon as he walked in the door, I knew everything was different.” Hal is a rover, a braggart, a handsome silver-tongued wanderer who turns out to be an old friend of Alan’s. He is the catalyst for change as he intrudes unwittingly in the lives of the Owens family. Sparks fly between Madge and Hal from the first, and we can only watch helplessly as the dance scene in Act 2 turns on the heat and ramps up the tension between the two.

Intertwined with the chemistry between Madge and Hal is the subplot of Rosemary Sydney, an old-maid schoolteacher who fights off loneliness and the certainty of despair the only way she knows how. Mired in her own unhappiness, she is able to see through the mask of bravado worn by Hal.

Madge is played with charming flirtatiousness by Meg Chambers Steedle in her Triad Stage debut. Her deepening confusion over her attraction to Hal and her own budding womanhood are well-played, as is the final heart wrenching scene.

Girls—be warned. You’ll be needing to use your program as a fan. Joe Tippet, also in his Triad Stage debut, oozes testosterone and animal magnetism as the hunky Hal. As Hal’s layers are peeled back from braggart to romantic to needy unloved child, Joe plays him with great strength.

Two other members of the cast were also debut performances. Cheryl Koski as little sister Millie Owens was delightful. Keep one eye on her during the dance scene. Philip Eggers, as Bomber, is a small part, but provides a nice bit of comedy.

The rest of the cast—Lorraine Shackelford, Elisabeth Ritson, Amy da Luz, Matthew Carlson, Joby Lee Strachan, Emily Mark, and James Crawford—were excellent as well. Whether portraying a mother’s anxiety for her daughters to be happy, well-bred Alan’s helpless rage at being unfavorably compared to the low-class Hal, or Howard’s cluelessness in all things romantic, these actors have done a fine job of bringing this classic Inge play to life.



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