Saturday, December 11, 2010

Picnic by William Inge


Characters:
Helen Potts
60 sheltered mother
Hal Carter
Disrupts the norm
Milie Owens
16, young, quirky
Bomber
Newsboy
Madge Owens
18, Hal and Madge have a spark
Rosemary Sydney

Flo Owens

Alan Seymor

Irma Kronkite


Time:
Labor Day and day after
Setting:
Kansas
Mode:
Realism
Form:
Drama

Themes:
- American: all American picnic, care about all caharacters, no single plot line/more character development, small town nowhere, sense of belonging








Plot:
Virile vagabond makes an impact on a group of repressed women in small Kansas town

Quotes:
Alan
I honestly never believed that a girl like you could care for me
Flo
Who fed whiskey to my Millie?
Mrs. Potts
I think we plan picnics just to give ourselves an excuse- to let something thrilling happen
Hal
There’s just no place in the world for a guy like me

Notes:
Country mid-western version of Street scene, “unstructured”?, Music Man


Playwright:

Born:
1913
Died:
1973
Year Written:
1953

Bio:
Began writing because Tennessee Williams encouraged him to write. Used the pen name of Walter Gage in a lot of his writings. Spent most of his life depressed and died of suicide. Known as the Playwright of the Midwest and several of his plays have been recently uncovered, never produced, and never published.

Picnic won a Pulitzer Prize in 1953, based on a childhood friend: “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 every woman’s failure. I began to sense the sorrow and the emptiness in their lives, and it touched me.”- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Inge

Other Work:
1947
Farther Off From Heaven
1949?
Come Back, Little Sheeba- Tony awards in 1950
1951
Splendor in the Grass- screenplay, won Oscar and  Academy Award (Best Writing, Story and Screenplay- Written Directly for the Screen)
1952
Come Back Little Sheeba- screenplay, won Oscar and Golden Globe
1953
Glory in the Flower
1955
Bus Stop
1957
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
1959
A Loss of Roses
1962
The Boy in the Basement
1963
The Stripper
1966
Where’s Daddy?
1970
Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff- novel
1972
The Last Pad
1975
Summer Brave

Off the Main Road

The Killing

All Fall Down- screenplay

Natural Affection

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