~by Dena Burroughs

Amanda Arbues and Allen Cutler - John Johnson photo
 

Picnic at The Sierra Madre Playhouse - Theater review

   Picnic is one of William Inge’s early and most successful plays.  It is set in Kansas, his birthplace, and it reflects the life of the 1950s, when girls were told to marry promptly and young men were expected to make money, but many longed for changes.  In Picnic, Inge captures the beginnings of social transition in an America that slowly, yet surely, grew tired of its conservative way of living and its sexual repression. 

   By today’s standards, an 18-year-old leaving home for the man she loves, and a young fellow who struts about shirtless, are not scandalous subjects.  Yet, in the play Inge well represents the varied sensitivities such subjects evoked fifty years ago.

   The actors of The Sierra Madre Playhouse are doing a good job helping its audience visualize Inge’s world.  Under the direction of Bob Hakman, the production presents Whittier born Allen Cutler as Hal, the handsome man who disrupts the routine of an entire neighborhood one Labor Day weekend.  Perhaps the most endearing performer is Sandra Hakman – the director’s wife – as Mrs. Helen Potts, the witty, kind-hearted neighbor who, although older, seems more tolerant to change than her younger counterparts. 

   The Sierra Madre Playhouse presents the show in three acts, in a cozy small theater that offers free coffee and one-dollar snacks during the longer of the play’s two short intermissions. 

   William Inge had an emotional life that he ultimately cut short in 1973 by poisoning himself with carbon monoxide.  Yet, the performance of his play at The Sierra Madre Playhouse will send you home happy to be breathing.   

The Sierra Madre Playhouse

87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd

Sierra Madre, CA 91024

Tickets $17-$20

http://www.sierramadreplayhouse.org

Sandra Hakman, Amanda Arbues and Allen Cutler - John Johnson photo