Inge's "Picnic,' revived in New York

Watching Picnic, William Inge's gentle slice of Americana from 1953, is likely to induce a case of culture shock. At least that's what I came down with after seeing the Roundabout Theatre's revival.

After you've entered the theater from 42nd Street, with its flashing neon signs and wall-to-wall pedestrians, Picnic's halcyon Great Plains world resembles another planet. And believe me— after a season of hurricanes, school shootings and political turmoil, you'll be grateful for the shelter that Picnic has to offer.

Could America ever have been this peaceful and stable? Or was this Inge's fantasy? (He grew up in a small town in Kansas, so one presumes authenticity.)

Picnic takes place in the back yard of one of those picture-postcard Midwest towns, with its clapboard houses, broad back porches and open kitchen windows through which neighbors chat and pass piping hot apple pies. It's a sunny, Eisenhower-era day in the Heartland, inhabited by women in colorful cotton dresses and starched aprons, peeling potatoes on the steps and admiring each other's homemade chocolate cakes.

Courting the town beauty

The action takes place over a 24-hour period on the day of (and morning after) the town's annual Labor Day picnic. Flo Owens and her daughters eagerly prepare for this much-anticipated event, the fulcrum of the town's social life.

Flo (played with sweet sadness by Mare Winningham) lives with the two daughters she's raised on her own (the husband's absence is never explained, but his dodgy character is implied). Madge, 18 (a graceful Maggie Grace), is the pretty one"“ the town beauty whose future will be determined by one of her many suitors, the most ardent being Alan Seymour, the high school scholar. Milly (a feisty Madeleine Martin) is the brainy one"“ socially awkward and intellectually eager, who dreams of going to college.

They are joined in the picnic preparations by their next-door neighbor Helen Potts, played with staunch stoicism by the indomitable Ellen Burstyn. Helen lives with an aging mother, whose voice calls out to her from within her house, demanding constant caretaking, to which Helen complies with placid resignation.

Sculpted torso

The order of these women's world is disturbed by the few men who inhabit it— and by one in particular. Hal Carter, a wayfarer with a questionable past, is doing temporary yard chores for Helen. When, early in Act I, he takes off his sweat-soaked shirt for Helen to launder, his perfectly sculpted bare torso (actor Sebastian Stan could rival Michelangelo's David) becomes the admiring focus for the entire cast of women— not to mention the audience.

Above all, Hal's magnetic masculinity captures the attention of Madge, who's supposed to go to the picnic with nerdy Alan. As dusk falls and anticipation rises, neighbors and friends gather in the yard for some pre-picnic dancing that changes all their lives. (Remember William Holden and Kim Novak's steamy pas de deux in the 1955 film version?)

Yes, the character types are easily recognizable, but that makes the landscape of Picnic all the more reassuring.

Single woman's fate

But behind that sunny, simplistic exterior lies another, quite sobering story. According to the research of the production's assistant director, Osheen Jones, a woman's life in that sweet little Kansas town was rigid and restrictive, to say the least.

If you were married (and that, of course, was the goal), your life was defined by family and community ("Kinder, Küche, Kirche", as they say). If you were single, however (as all the women are in Picnic), you abided by another set of rules.

Single women were not allowed to live alone, according to the social code of conduct. So they lived, like Helen (a spinster), with an aging mother, or, like Flo (an abandoned wife), with their children, reluctant to let them go. Spinsters boarded in the homes of other women (like Flo's).

Into the unknown

Few jobs were available to single women, other than teaching. And if a single woman had a job, she was expected to retire immediately once she married, stay home, and care for her husband. A woman would never break the mold"“ after all, she would become a social pariah.

The single women of the older generation in this play"“ Flo and Helen"“ abide by these rules. The younger women tell another story. Madge will attempt to break the mold and escape into the unknown, albeit with dubious prospects.

Meanwhile, the other women stay behind and try to achieve happiness, somehow. Toward this goal, no one is more desperate"“ or poignant"“ than Rosemary Sydney, the spinster schoolteacher who boards with Flo. As played by the marvelous Elizabeth Marvel (seen most recently in Hyde Park on Hudson, Lincoln and The Bourne Legacy), the aging Rosemary has, for decades, had her eye on bashful Howard Bevans, a local shopkeeper (played pitch-perfectly by Reed Birney).

Desperate and degraded

As the moon rises on the picnic evening, Rosemary dances up a storm in the yard with anyone who will join her. "They call me a dancin' fool," she cries, as her steps become wild and frantic. Later that night, as the recalcitrant Howard walks her home, she beseeches him to marry her and rescue her from her dead-end life in Flo's house.

"I'm not going to marry anyone who doesn't say "'Please'," retorts Howard starchily, intent on avoiding marriage at all costs.

Suddenly, Rosemary collapses to the ground and flings her arms around Howard's legs. The façade of forced cheer is gone. "Marry me, marry me, marry me," she begs, over and over, sobbing in desperation. The sight of that poor weeping woman groveling on her knees before an unwilling man is one of the most cringing, painful moments I've ever seen onstage.

The next scene brings a big laugh as we see the hunched Howard trudging sheepishly out of Flo's back door on the following morning, carrying a set of Rosemary's suitcases. But no laughter can drown out those choked sobs of a woman desperate to grab at the only salvation available to her, no matter the cost to her dignity.

Perhaps life for women in that era, in that world, wasn't a picnic, after all.