<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div class="" align="center" style="text-align:center" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3923"><b class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3924">This Holiday’s No Picnic<o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3925"></o:p></b></div><div class="" align="center" style="text-align:center" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3926">By Tom Wachunas<b class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3927"> <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3928"></o:p></b></div><div class="" align="center" style="text-align:center" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3926"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3929"><b class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3930"> Seat Of The Pants Productions and The
Plain Local Community Center For The Arts present <i class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3931">Picnic</i>, by William Inge, in the Black Box Theatre, located in Glen
Oak High School, 1801 Schneider St. NE, Canton, Ohio / August 28- 30/ Friday
and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday afternoon at 2 / Tickets are $16 for adults and
$12 for students, and can be purchased at</b> <a href="http://www.translationsart.com/picnic" class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3932">www.translationsart.com/picnic</a>
<o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3933"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3929"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3934"> A recurring sound
in this production of William Inge’s 1953 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, <i class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3935">Picnic, </i>is that of the plaintive whistle
from a passing train. Signaling both a place left behind and a future
destination, the sound becomes a role unto itself - a haunted harbinger of jarring
changes that transpire in a Kansas small town neighborhood preparing for a
picnic (which, ironically enough, we never actually see) on a sweltering Labor
Day. <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3936"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3934"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3937"> Once again,
director Craig Joseph (with several notable past Canton Players Guild
productions to his credit) shows his remarkable acuity for drawing out compelling
realism from his cast members. They truly own their roles, imbuing Inge’s
language - which on paper can sometimes seem hoakey and histrionic – with
visceral authenticity. Additionally, The Black Box Theatre is made all the more
intimate by Micah Harvey’s artful set that cuts across the floor so that we in
the audience, viewing it from two sides, feel like neighbors peering into the
shared back yard where most of the story unfolds. <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3938"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3937"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3939"> Justin Edenhoffer
plays Hal, a scruffy, college-dropout drifter who rolls into town like a Kansas
twister. For all of his bad-boy strutting and shirtless posing, he’s
complicated and essentially an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. Mr.
Edenhoffer embodies Hal’s lithe sexuality and swagger with masterful agility
even as he realizes his shortcomings. He’s hired by the amiable Helen, who is
apt to see the best in anyone - and played here with a spirit of wisdom and
endearing tenderness by Kathy J. Boyd - to do handy work around her house where
she cares for her (unseen) ailing mother. Living next door are her neighbors,
single-mom Flo (April Deming), her two daughters, 18 year-old Madge (Anna Gallucci) and younger
sister Millie (Natalie Welch), and a school teacher tenant, Rosemary (Jacki
Dietz).<o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3940"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3939"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3941"> Anna Gallucci’s
Madge - the proverbial prettiest girl in town - is an arresting portrait of
melancholy and vulnerability as she negotiates an identity crisis. When Flo
complains that Madge spends too much time in front of the mirror, Madge replies
that it’s only because she wonders if she even exists beyond the physical beauty
that everyone else is so crazy about. When she hears that lonely train whistle,
she imagines journeying to a place freed from the constricting conventions of
life in rural Kansas, and finally liberated from her mother’s agenda for her to
marry the sophisticated, clean-cut and monied Alan (Tim Carmany), Hal’s former
fraternity brother. She’s perfectly positioned
to fall for Hal’s “dangerous” charms, if only because he (of all people!) sees
her not as a pretty doll to be coveted and claimed, but a real person to be
cherished. <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3942"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3941"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3943"> As the doting
mother Flo, April Deming effectively exudes quiet desperation and pensive
urgency, eager for Madge to marry into a life she herself couldn’t acquire.
Meanwhile, Natalie Welch nails the role of the scholarly tomboy Millie,
resentful over all the attentions paid to her older sister, with an infectious,
animated mix of sass and woundedness. <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3944"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3943"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3922"> Some delightful
moments of comic relief are provided by Jacki Dietz, playing Rosemary, along
with Angeleina Valentine and Jeannie Clarkson, who play Irma and Christine respectively,
Rosemary’s chatty teacher compatriots. Dietz is also central in some of the
play’s most emotionally volatile scenes. In one, fueled by a few swigs of
bootleg whiskey, she unleashes an explosive verbal assault on Hal - a
no-holds-barred condemnation of everything she finds objectionable about him.
Later, she surrenders her dignity in a pathetic plea for marriage to her
reluctant suitor, Howard (Andrew Knode), a plainspoken if not clueless store
owner. Particularly memorable there is Knode’s demeanor of numbed acquiescence
in the face of Dietz’s euphoria. </div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3922"> <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3945"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3946"> In his role of Alan, Tim Carmany renders a
convincing transformation – from an initially genuine enthusiasm at his reunion
with Hal, through growing irritation at Hal’s bravado, and ultimately into
devastating heartbreak over Hal’s inevitable seduction of Madge.<o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3947"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3946"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3948"> Indeed, the
operative energy in this story is <i class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3949">inevitability</i>.
In the end, you get the sense that even for young Millie, earlier teased and harassed
by the gadfly paperboy named Bomber (Kyle Burnett), romance waits somewhere in
the wings.<o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3950"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3948"><br></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3951"> <i class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3952">Picnic </i>isn’t just a dated snapshot of
1950s Midwestern life tinged with despondency and sexual repression.
Alternately poignant and searing, it is a timeless reminder that in any quest
for real personhood, the only certainty is change itself. Dreams can be born
and broken with all the regularity of a train running right on time. <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3953"></o:p></div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3951"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3819">
</div><div class="" dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3954"><i class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3955"> For other commentaries by Tom Wachunas on
the performing and visual arts in the Canton area, please visit ARTWACH, at</i> <a href="http://www.artwach.blogspot.com/" class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3956">www.artwach.blogspot.com</a> <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440446471646_3957"></o:p></div></div></body></html>