Picnic Paperback – January 1, 1998

My first experience with Picnic was probably most typical ---I saw the 1955 film with the iconic Kim Novack, making her big screen debut. I didn't see the actual play as intended by Inge until the TV production circa 1990s (forget the exact date) with Jennifer Jason Leigh in the Novack role. Now that I've read the play as written, I have a few observations to add to the several reviews here. The first thing I noticed was that the entire action of the play takes place on the single set representing the front yard and 2/3 view of the Owens home, the intervening yard and back alley way, and the next door backyard and rear 2/3 view of Mrs. Potts' home with the backdrop of the town and various municipal and farm structures. The film provided the decisive crises at the picnic site itself, rather more like a county fair with several hundreds attending than the smaller scale event (perhaps 50-100 attending) portrayed indirectly in the play. The way the picnic event was brought to life offstage is a credit to Inge's creative imagination. Most likely even the theater technology of the early 50's might have permitted some scene changes to represent the main event itself, but I believe that Inge wanted playgoers to concentrate on the homes of the five main female protagonists and how confining they were to their shattered hopes and dreams.Inge has a knack for portraying Midwestern town life, more specifically that of President "Ike"'s America at mid-20th century. I try to see that movie again purely as a look back at a simpler, even it more repressed, America. As such, the ambiance is now a bit outdated, but the internal struggles of the women of that day may not be as strange to sensibilities of six decades hence as one of the reviewers has noted here. She complains of the "simpering, groveling, hopeless behavior of the women", but that characterization is simplistic. Each in their own way, and in the context of the 1950s small-town Midwest, WAS asserting her own independence from the straightjacket imposed by the morals of the day. Flo wanted her daughter to marry out of the disillusioning life that characterized the mother's existence (as shallow as her solution for Madge seems now), Rosemary struggled to marry out of her sentence to old-age spinsterhood, and Mrs. Potts, her own hopes for romance seemingly destroyed by an infirm elderly mother who dominates her even now, cheers on Madge's daring leap into the unknown with the romantic, if unpromising, stranger Hal and Millie's aspirations to transcend them all with a truly independent artistic career in New York.When I first viewed the film, I was 16 and it was a revelation. Now it's a nostalgic trip back to the era so well depicted in the movie's central picnic scene with the various rustic races and contests--which may be familiar to modern 4th of July community celebrations--, the "talent" competition, beauty queen, etc. still may resonate with a newer generation.That aside, Inge's play shows real insight into the hopes and dreams of middle class, middle American women of the 1950s, as contrasted to Tennessee Williams' concentration on the high-strung, upper class female woes of the same period.One is tempted to speculate on the future of the various protagonists and the extent to which one can do this is a measure of the richness of the playwright's characterizations. Here are my modest efforts in that direction.I can imagine that Madge and Hal meet in Tulsa, get married and live in the room at the hotel where Hal is employed as a bellhop. Madge lands a job at the cosmetics counter of a department store. Hal's charm and determination to prosper, self-promotion and good looks leads to advancement to a post at the front desk, his increased salary, combined with Madge's enabling them to set up housekeeping in a modest home. There are marital problems due to Hal's philandering ways, but Madge's pregnancy and the birth of their first child prompts him to reform, even if only temporarily and they stay together, thanks to the efforts of mother-in-law Flo and Howard Bevans, whom Hal respects.Rosemary and Howard's marriage stays on course in Cherryvale and Rosemary, unsatisfied to remain in role as a housefrau, returns to teaching. They do not have any children.Millie gets a journalism scholarship to Columbia University and nails a post with the New York Times as drama critic. She never marries.Flo eventually reconciles with daughter Madge and Hal at the birth of their daughter and her first grandchild and they are frequent guests at the Owens rooming home in Nickerson.Helen Potts' mother passes away a few years later and Helen hooks up with and marries a business acquaintance of Howard Bevans. They move into Mrs. Potts' home.Alan Seymour gets his Masters in Business Administration, and returns to manage his father's oil business after the old man dies (grain enterprise in the film), marries another local beauty queen, has four children and that family become good friends with Flo and Helen.

Sure, It was award winning and I recall the movie. Wish I could find it now. Anyone know where i can find it?

I was a little upset by the book - thought it would be written in book style. Instead it was the script from the movie! My mistake as I figure I didn't understand what I was getting. However, Picnic is one special movie. It goes back to my days & brings back good memories. I have always liked Kim Novak & Bill Holden, Rosalind Russell & the rest of the actors were great.

This story is great. Picnic is a great play and deserves all the reading it can get. Nice characters to play for actors.

Script was in great shape. I'm using this for a show performance and needs to refresh my memory. Actually, I'm using this as my script.

PICNIC is a play that clearly exhibits male/female relationships at the time it was written. We have come a long way baby! As a performance choice it does not hold up well in 2009. It makes me rather sick to see the simpering, groveling, hopeless behavior of the women. The men aren't any better. I am so glad that today's young women have choices and opportunities to not tie themselves, like rocks, to men.

Great play with a lovely story. This play is inspiring and playful. I recommend it for anyone who enjoys theatre.

I was forced to read this for a class I was taking but I was pleasantly surprised that once I read the part I needed to read I felt that I had to continue to the end. The play is about some people from the 50's or 60's that live in a small town and look forward to some dumb "picnic". Several characters are well developed having well defined objectives.

Picnic is the 1953 Pulitzer Prize-winning play that takes place on Labour Day weekend, and the arrival on down-on-his-luck Hal and his relationships with the close-knit community. After finishing the play, I immediately picked it up again because it deserved a second read. Inge's script is so rich that you will get something different out of it each time you read it. There is so much said, and not said, that you can't help but keep thinking about the play long after the final curtain. The use of the train, which you only hear through dialogue or the sound of its while, was a great repeated motif that made you keeps drawing you back to the theme of escape, and of travel. There are fascinating conjunctures made regarding gender roles, of how they play off one another, and how Hal, a new male arrival, changes the pre-established dynamics of an overtly female setting. His arrival acts as a catalyst for several changes, some direct and some indirect. In the UK this play is not well-known at all, despite the 1955 film adaptation, and as far as I can see has not had a West End run. I hope that I will get to see a live performance of this play someday in the future.