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Picnic, a play by William Inge, is set during Labor Day in the midwestern town of Independence, Kansas. Written in 1953, the play's historical, cultural and stylistic context was heavily influenced by modern American life during the time period. One of the most predominant themes in the play revolves around gender roles and the social status of men versus women.
Historical, Cultural, and Stylistic Context[edit]
In the 1950s, women were seen as politically and economically inferior to men. Females were expected to be demure and domesticated, aspiring to motherhood and the life of a housewife. Largely seen as objects instead of people, women had to behave modestly and be beautiful while their husband worked and pursued a career. According to the 1950 census, there were 11,763 women "keeping house" in Montgomery County, Kansas, contradicted by only 1,216 women in the labor force. The average woman in the 1950s was married by age 19 or 20 and had four children, with only 5.2% of the female population obtaining college degrees. Up until 1964 it was perfectly legal to pay a woman less than a man specifically because of her gender and also to fire a woman if she was married.
Culturally, America was dealing with publicity from the Cold War. Communism was promoted as "evil" and propaganda displayed Russian women dressed in gunnysacks and toiling in unpleasant factories. This propaganda further contributed to and idealized the femininity and domestication of American women as well as the admiration of the "nuclear family." On the opposite side of the spectrum, men also obliged strict gender conventions. After returning from battling in World War II, men were expected to become perfect fathers and businessmen. Taking over as the breadwinner, the perfect man was idealized as someone who should be confident, respectable, hardworking, proper, and legitimate. Masculinity was idealized and weakness was uncouth.
Picnic both accepts and denies these gender regulations. While many characters seemingly fit into typical gender roles, there are often clues that the people we see in this story wish to free themselves from such standards. In this sense, Inge is progressive and allows for character development as the plot continues. For example, Madge Owens's beauty is romanticized and often put before all other aspects of her persona. She is frequently compared to her sister Millie Owens in terms of physical attractiveness and is admired by men such as Hal Carter, Alan Seymour, and Bomber. Millie also says of her sister: "Madge cooks and sews and does all those things that women do." As a female character, Madge faces pressure from society (as well as her mother) to stay with her boyfriend Alan, a rich young man, as opposed to courting Hal, an irresponsible and impulsive alternative. Her mother Flo goes so far as to tell her "A pretty girl doesn’t have long—just a few years. Then she’s the equal of kings and she can walk out of a shanty like this and live in a palace with a doting husband who’ll spend his life making her happy." While she is initially displayed as a material asset, the play placing emphasis on her usage of beauty products, Madge ultimately unchains herself from these limitations and pursues a life of passion instead of wealth. This in turn teaches her mother Flo that one cannot always control another's destiny. Other female characters transform as well. Millie begins as a turbulent tomboy, but finds purpose in academics and decides to attend college. She says "I’m old enough already. Madge can stay in this jerkwater town and marry some ornery guy and raise a lot of dirty kids. When I graduate from college I’m going to New York, and write novels that’ll shock people right out of their senses." This ambition is almost unheard of and Millie's educational accomplishments are notable, particularly during a time period when women were discouraged from having professional careers. However, not all moments in the play are as outwardly powerful as others. Rosemary Sydney, a schoolteacher who boasts of her independence, emotionally collapses when she realizes her youth is passing her by and begs her partner Howard Bevans to marry her. While Madge embodies free will, Rosemary at times reinforces societal stipulations regarding womans' need for marriage and a family.
William Inge also experiments with gender roles when it comes to the men in his production. Much like Madge's will and Flo's overbearing side, uncharacteristic of women in the 1950s, Inge also challenges gender conventions with Hal. At times, Hal's description matches expectations of men in the 1950s. He says he would prefer "Oh, something in a nice office where I can wear a tie … and have a sweet little secretary… and talk over the telephone about enterprises and … things. I've always had feeling, if I just had the chance, I would set the whole world on fire." This sense of ambition and drive was supported and encouraged for men in the workforce. While he is handsome and confident, akin to typical males of the time period, he also shows surprising vulnerability and weakness after being targeted by Rosemary. Despite his bravado, he cares what other people think and wishes to find a sense of purpose. Alan displays affection for Madge, but it is unclear whether his admiration stems from her superficial beauty or her personality. Howard lacks assertiveness and decisiveness, unsure of whether he should marry Rosemary, hesitant to commit. Inge's play is not entirely feminist or disagreeing with the time period, but his representation of gender roles thwarts stereotypes and challenges societal conventions.
Stylistically, William Inge approaches Picnic from a realistic angle. He focuses on society and its effect on the characters he has created. Inge utilizes realism in a way to show that the cultural norms and gender expectations found during the time period are not necessarily what is best. In combating typical gender structure, he is able to successfully illustrate that one may find increased happiness outside of the restraints of society.
Literary Responses[edit]
After Picnic was written in 1953 and became William Inge's second Broadway production, audiences and critics responded enthusiastically, because the themes of the play questioned the social norms of gender roles during that time. William Inge received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year and director Joshua Logan won a Tony Award for Best Director. The New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of the season was also awarded. Many other plays written during the 1950s (such as The Rainmaker by N. Richard Nash) also dealt with gender roles and societal expectations for women. Coming into a theatre and having audience members see this drastic change from their normal day lives garnered different responses from most individuals.
On February 19th, 1953, the play Picnic was first opened on Broadway at The Music Box Theatre. When the production was on Broadway, it had very good reviews. The play lasted into the late 50s with a tour throughout 1954 and 1955 as well as opening in England at the Belgrade Theatre in 1958. As a play, it did very well and Inge's work ended up trumping other playwrights during the 50s, thriving for audiences around the world.
Picnic serves to be a contrast to the American Dream image that was so familiar to 1950s audiences who were constantly trying to have perfect families and lead an image of constantly being successful. Joshua Logan, director of the original production, wrote about William Inge in his autobiography and talked about what the audience thought of the play. The audience definitely could have thought this way because Hal is a manly character, but at the same time is completely inappropriate and doesn’t fit into the “white-picket-fence” idea due to his past failures. Logan stated: “Before we opened on Broadway, we toured Picnic; as a matter of fact if we hadn’t had the out-of-town tour I don’t think we could have made it into a success. When we came to Cleveland, I began to notice that the audience was very divided in their feelings; I didn’t feel a unified reaction to anything. David Merrick came to see it and I asked him, “What do you think of the leading man?” David said. “I don’t know; every time he comes on the stage I just bristle. I react very badly to him. He’s showing off and bragging. I can’t stand him.” Then I heard a man in the audience say “Some hero!” And it suddenly occurred to me, “My God, they feel that we don’t know that he has got bad qualities.”
Original Ending[edit]
When Picnic was first drafted, it would not have received the same literary responses that the finalized production did. Originally titled Front Porch, the play was set to have a very different ending. In Inge's earlier scripts, Madge's character was written to stay and live in torment for the remainder of her life. Logan was the driving force which convinced Inge to retitle and rewrite his play. After many long discussions over the content of the final scene, Inge finally asked Logan's wife "All right, I want your opinion, what do you think? Should Madge stay or go?" To which she replied "If that girl doesn't go after him, I don't want to see the play." This spurred Inge to change the ending, thusly determining the play's substantial success. Logan felt that the audience would revolt if there was no sense the lovers would get together at the end, stating "It's as though he killed his favorite child." Although Inge was never entirely content with the rewritten ending, he stated "We had our ups and downs with [Picnic], which I attribute mainly to my second-play nervousness and indecision. An unstable author, who isn’t sure what he wants, is a great liability to a director; so if Picnic did not come off entirely to please me, it was my own fault. Josh only sensed my indecision and tried to compensate for it.” This final act allowed Madge to break free of conventional gender restrictions, abandoning her modesty and social responsibilities in order to pursue happiness and, ultimately, hope.
“I love the ending that’s there. He was afraid if he sent everyone off in a rosy sunset, that would betray the play. He thought that would be corny, but it’s actually a quite nuanced ending that leaves it up to the audience—their thoughts and their hopes.” --Sebastian Stan (played Hal in a later production)
Adaptations[edit]
There were several adaptations of the original script, met with varying degrees of success. The 1955 film featuring William Holden as Hal and Kim Novak as Madge was the most popular spin-off, which was nominated for six academy awards and won two. In the 1960s Paul Osborne created Hot September, a musical based off of Picnic, which closed after a few weeks in Boston. Inge attempted to stay true to his original ending by writing the 1970s play Summer Brave, but the adaptation flopped after opening in 1973 and he committed suicide two months later. Although the play has since been written into operas and used as the basis for a television special, William Inge never reached the same level of success again.
Production Choices[edit]
For what is called in the production, there is much need for a 1950s suburban, white-picket fence style set. To follow more American qualities, the show takes place in a small Kansas town during Labor Day weekend. It deliberately says in the first page of the script:
“The houses themselves are humble dwellings, built with no other pretension than to provide shelter for their occupants, but their occupants are women who have worked hard to keep up an appearance, so the houses, although they may need a coat of paint, are kept tidy, and there are colorful slip-covers on the porch furniture and lush flower-beds at the edge of the porches”
The fact that in the beginning of the text women are already mentioned for being the keeper of their homes comes directly out of gender roles. Men are to be the "bread winners" of the family and women have to be at home to raise the children, cook for the family, and clean the house. It is also inferring that women during this time were always caring about what their neighbors would think. On page 13 in the script, when Millie and Madge are fighting, Flo exclaims "Girls! Girls! Stop it! What will the neighbors say!". Therefore, not only in the stage directions are all of these qualities implied, but it is also in the dialogue of the characters. It sounds that when this was written, the playwright used a stereotype about women being tidy, being a keeper of the home, and giving a good impression to the people that live in close quarters to them. All of this is related to the gender roles that were portrayed in the 1950s.
Throughout the play, it is constantly mentioned how women must be aware of their appearance and how they must appease men as well as their neighbors. Most of the costumes of the production would have women dressed in nice dresses and men dressed in a suit and tie all for a picnic. It was a social gathering where men and women could practically flirt with each other and get set-up. Throughout the piece, Flo is constantly looking for a date for Millie because she is obviously concerned about her daughter’s future as a young housewife. In these days, women couldn’t be independent and had to depend on men for just about everything. Therefore, their appearance had to matter if they wanted to obtain a husband and be able to keep him.
In most productions, for example, at the Roundabout Theatre, they kept the 1950s very much alive with the setting and the costumes. Women were wearing dresses (except Millie) and men were dressed in their "business-professional" attire. The productions choices should be kept in this way because it is a reminder of the time period where gender roles were defined as everyone being put in their proper places and could not venture out of that in pure worry of what society will think of them.
Biographical Information on William Inge[edit]
Playwright William Inge was born in 1913 in Independence, Kansas. His Midwest upbringing is a distinctive aspect of his work and he is the first playwright to write about his small-town life. His plays usually feature main characters who are strained with sexual relations, small-town life, and settings rooted in America. As a result of his upbringing and environment, he mostly wrote what he knew. Women have influenced him ever since he was a little boy. He stated: “When I was a boy in Kansas, my mother had a boarding house. There were three women school teachers living in the house. I was four years old, and they were nice to me. I liked them. I saw their attempts, and even as a child, I sensed women’s failure. I began to sense the sorrow and the emptiness in their lives, and it touched me.”
He was also affected by his father and incorporated that part of his life into his characters. His father was what every man back in these days wanted to be; successful and perfect. He had a job as a traveling salesman and had a good marriage with Inge's mother. It is interesting to note that in Picnic, Flo is an single woman who is waiting around for a man and needs a marriage to fulfill the emptiness she has in her life. It relates to his father because he was a traveling salesman and wasn't around much. It sounds that Inge was waiting for the father that he never truly had growing up. His childhood gave him "a knowledge of people and a love of people" which is unbelievable to find that he knew this by a young age. He incorporated what he knew into his plays and therefore caused interesting story-lines that hadn't been done before.
While most of Picnic shows how women are attached at the hip to their home, care so much about their appearances, and are subjected to men, Inge puts in those who are strong women like Mrs. Owens. Unfortunately, Madge is the typical girl who clings to a man and in the end, doesn’t become independent for herself completely. She becomes independent for herself as a person but needs a man to live a life away from her mother. Inge incorporated his idea on women into his plays and therefore is the reasoning why they play out the way they do.
Bibliography for Further Reading[edit]
- Boundless. “Gender Roles in the U.S..” Boundless Sociology. Boundless, 14 Nov. 2014. Retrieved 23 Apr. 2015
- Bryer, Jackson R., and Mary C. Hartig. "Reminiscences." William Inge: Essays and Reminiscences on the Plays and the Man. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 234. Print.
- Gilbert, James Burkhart. Men In the Middle: Searching for Masculinity in the 1950s. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2005. Print.
- Inge, William. Front Porch. n.p., 1951.
- Inge, William. Picnic. New York: Dramatist Play Service, 1955.
- Inge, William. Summer Brave. New York: Dramatist Play Service, 1962.
- Johnson, Jeff. William Inge and the Subversion of Gender. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2005.
- "Masculinity, Gender Roles, and T.V. Shows from the 1950s." The Artifice. The Artifice, 18 Oct. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
- Murphy, Nicholas A. "Applying Historiography to Fictional Works: A Case Study of William Inge's Picnic." Thesis. University of Central Florida, 2013. Print.
- "People & Events: Mrs. America: Women's Roles in the 1950s." American Experience: The Pill. PBS, 1999-2001. Web. 2015.
- Roundabout Theatre Company. "Picnic UpStage." (n.d.): n. pag. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
- Voss, Ralph F. A Life of William Inge: The Strains of Triumph. Lawrence, KA: University Press of Kansas, 1989.
- "William Inge Biography." William Inge Center. William Inge Center for the Arts, 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.