A ‘Picnic’ Worth Packing

If Americans covet one thing more than money, it’s beauty.

The destructive potential of this national obsession is hauntingly depicted in “Picnic,” and director Christofer Cariello and his performers do a credible job of drawing it out in their community theater presentation of William Inge’s 1953 play at the Garden Grove Playhouse. Their work is a heartening reminder that a sensitive director, committed cast and sensational script can generate powerful theater, whether at the amateur or professional level.

Inge’s plays--which also include “Bus Stop” and “Come Back, Little Sheba”--are often dismissed nowadays as dusty relics of ‘50s disappointment and stifled desire. This production proves otherwise, for in addition to its timeless observations about beauty, “Picnic” contains keen observations about desire, disillusionment, the panic of aging and the divisiveness of the American class system. It also delivers wry commentary about the repression and hypocrisy that can lead to book banning, arts censorship and, perhaps, the dismantling of the National Endowment for the Arts.

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The play’s most chilling character is an unmarried schoolteacher, past her prime, who sets herself up as a moral arbiter--demanding the removal of genitalia from a nude statue in the school library--yet who, in a moment of defense-dropping drunkenness, throws herself at a handsome young drifter, the very personification of that statue.

The late author set his story in the American heartland: rural Kansas, rendered here in a totemic landscape of grain elevators and power lines, with an imposing blue sky bearing down on the flat, brown earth.

The action unfolds in the adjoining yards of two households of yearning women: the widowed Helen Potts (Patricia Ibsen) and her unseen, bedridden mother; and the younger widowed Flora Owens (Anisa Olazabal) and her teenage daughters Madge (Leanna Rene Rodgers) and Millie (Jennifer Kolchier).

Tomboyish Millie is always grousing about how everything comes so easily to Madge, the town beauty. But to Madge, attractiveness is mostly a burden, especially since it seems destined to trap her in an advantageous but one-sided marriage with wealthy suitor Alan Seymour (Michael Musa). Madge meets her soul mate in Hal (Derrick Ray), a penniless young man who drifts into town. Handsome, with a sportsman’s physique, he is treated as a hustler--and just about everyone, from sweet old Helen to the bitter schoolteacher, Rosemary Sydney (Susan Gordon), makes a pass at him.

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Into an otherwise realistic staging, Cariello throws a couple of choice iconographic moments, with a dreamy spotlight on Hal and Madge’s first dance (making it seem as though the rest of the world has faded away) and--the searing final image--a beam of light on Hal’s left-behind cowboy boots.

Rodgers is particularly compelling as Madge, her prom queen loveliness edged with bitter despair. Musa is endearing as Alan, a sweet, affable guy who, nevertheless, doesn’t set off any sparks in Madge. As Hal, Ray--with his rumpled good looks and longish dark blond hair--certainly possesses the role’s physical attributes (though his lean build makes him look more like a swimmer than the college football hero he’s supposed to have been). His offhand smile and casual sensuality nearly carry the role, but he needs to spend more time in acting class working on characterization and picking up line cues.

* “Picnic,” Garden Grove Playhouse, 12001 St. Mark St., in Eastgate Park, Garden Grove. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. $10. (714) 897-5122. Running time: 2 hours.

Lori Anderson: Irma

David Cramer: Howard Bevans

Maria D’Ambrosio: Christine

Jonathan Foertsch: Bomber

Susan Gordon: Rosemary Sydney

Patricia Ibsen: Helen Potts

Jennifer Kolchier: Millie Owens

Michael Musa: Alan Seymour

Anisa Olazabal: Flora Owens

Derrick Ray: Hal Carter

Leanna Rene Rodgers: Madge Owens

A Garden Grove Playhouse production. Script by William Inge. Directed by Christofer Cariello. Associate director: Michael Musa. Set/choreography: Dan B. Rodgers. Background painter: Glen Kendrick. Lights/costumes: Magdalena Montezuma. Stage manager: Bill Crouter.