On a sweltering Labor Day morning, the women of a quiet neighborhood on the wrong side of the tracks are preparing for the annual picnic. Watchful mother Flo Owens has hopes that her beautiful daughter Madge will get a proposal from Alan, the local millionaire’s son. Younger sister Millie, the “smart one�, yearns to grow up and leave her small town behind. Good-natured Mrs. Potts is happy to get a break from taking care of her aged mother. And spinster schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney cheerfully keeps her boyfriend Howard at arms� length. This seemingly placid feminine environment is disrupted when Hal Carter, a muscular and charming young drifter who happens to be a former fraternity brother of Alan’s, hops off the freight train, and straight into Mrs. Potts� hospitable home. Hearts are broken and lives are changed in the following twenty-four hours, as Hal’s lively, dangerous, masculine energy wakes up the sleepy community. A small Kansas town in the 1950s is the setting for William Inge’s bittersweet melodrama Picnic, which explores themes of sexuality, repression, rites of passage, and disappointment.
Picnic guide sections
