The play “Picnic,” written in 1953 by William Inge, is about two families in the ’50s who live next to each other at a small town located in the midwest.
“It’s about the examination of relationships and the growing up of that time in the country’s history, becoming independent and realizing oneself, the transitions that we as people go through and the big important moments in your life,” director John Demita said.
Played by Xanda Myers, theater and Portuguese major, Madge is an 18-year-old who is the most popular female in school and considered the prettiest female in town.
Although she has those positive traits about herself, she has come to realize that those aren’t enough and she wants to strive for more in life, Demita said.
“She’s (Madge) going through an identity crisis and feeling pressured from her mom, and I think we can all relate. We all go through that stage in life, like the ‘who are we’ and what we want to do,” Myers said.
Along with maturing and discovering who we are, the play is also about love and the ability of two people expressing the way they feel towards each other.
“In the 21st century, we don’t express love very openly and when you have a conversation with someone you’re attracted to, you beat around the bush,” Demita said.
Demita, who is directing his 30th play of his career, said that the way that we are used to expressing our feelings in today’s society was what made putting together the play more challenging.
He had to try to get his actors to feel more “comfortably honest” about love in order to play the roles of the characters.
Myers, who hadn’t auditioned for a role in two years and then landed the lead role in this play, said that another challenge for her while acting was playing the “pretty girl” part.
“I’ve always played characters with comedic roles and I always had crazy wigs with crazy makeup,” she said. “It was really hard for me to stop being the funny girl when I was acting.”
Even though the actors played a very crucial role in putting together the play, Demita said the team of designers who helped create the stage settings and the costumes were also important.
“The costumes really support the characters,” Kim Wilkinson, costume director, said. “Sometimes even getting the right hue (color) of the costume will make the actor be able to feel like they are in character.”
After seven weeks of meeting and practicing to perfect the play, it opened last Friday and Saturday and will continue to show tomorrow and Saturday, at 8 p.m. Sunday will be the closing night and the show will start at 3 p.m. that day.
Demita encourages students to watch “Picnic” because even though the title doesn’t seem familiar to many students, he said it is still an interesting play for young audiences.
“The characters in the play from almost sixty years ago are very much like the young people are today, especially those at community colleges trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do in their lives,” he said.
