I’m not much of a William Inge
aficionado; I find his plays of small town
sexual repression overwrought and of debatable veracity (a charged opinion for
another time and context), but at least, with so much time having
passed since he wrote them in the 1950s, they’ve stopped seeming quaintly dated
ands now seem more like notable artifacts of an era. Worth watching too, if
they’re done well enough, and the new Roundabout production of Picnic,
directed by Sam Gold, is
delivered well indeed.
The
back porch-and-yard drama—well, more of a comedy-drama, but too earnest
for out-and-out comedy—features in the center, a triangle: a handsome,
roamin’ bad boy come back to town (Sebastian Stan); a handsome good boy, a town mainstay on the rise (Ben
Rappaport); and the hot young girl “going”
with the second but drawn to the first (Maggie Grace). The surrounding orbit is occupied by family: the
girl’s youner, jealous, supposedly less-pretty sister (Madeleine
Martin) and their Mom (Mare
Winningham). And the outer orbit by
neighbors and borders: the old maid schoolteacher with the secret life (Elizabeth
Marvel), the nondescript store owner who
wants to keep it a secret (Reed Birney); and the grandmotherly lady-next-door who remembers the old days and
thinks young people are just amazing (Ellen Burstyn). All hands deliver their roles with conviction,
craft and varying credibility.
I
say varying because this is an odd time to present Picnic in terms of period accuracy. In the 50s, young men,
no matter how strapping, didn’t have the sculpted torsos of latter-day
workouts; not the ones we saw on stage and in films anyway. And many of the
hunks were really just good looking character men. In the original Picnic,
the wayward bad boy was played by Ralph
Meeker, who had a swagger and a smirk that would later see him playing blue
collar and tough guy roles like P.I. Mike Hammer in Kiss Me, Deadly. And the stalwart good boy was played by Paul Newman, about whom little more
need be said.
By
contrast, the Mssrs. Stan and Rappaport in this 2013 cast, are much more of the
pretty boy type that pervades TV and films today. They may be interesting in
their own ways, but neither of them (at least not yet) has the kind of distinct
idiosyncrasy that presages a mold-breaking, self-defining persona that transcends
type. This is not meant as criticism but as
observation of a cultural phenomenon. There are casting types that don’t really
exist anymore, not in their pure form, and they can’t be recreated because
biology defeats the attempt. We take better care of ourselves these
days—certainly most actors do—with the result that we look younger
for a longer time. That added edge of a young, handsome buck seeming a little
weathered, a little lived-in, more psychologically filled out, usually doesn’t
inform his physical appearance until his 30s. At which point, in our 2013
perception, he becomes too old to pass for 20.
That
subtle disjunct between the play’s era and the reality of 2013 is always,
quietly nibbling at the verisimilitude of this revival, and the revival never
completely succeeds in making you forget it’s there. So there’s this hovering
back-of-the-mind niggle at unwanted moments reminding you that you’re watching
people pretending.
I
don’t know how you conquer it. Well, I do, but that too is nothing anyone can
control. You have to be too young to care…or remember…
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