Small town America grapples with big emotions

After showcasing vicious vegetation and a storied murder mystery, the Kenai Performers close out their season this month by bringing theatergoers to a Labor Day weekend in 1950s America.

Starting on May 8, the troupe will perform playwright William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Picnic.”

Ken Duff, who directs the production with Ann Shirnberg, said for decades he’s been fascinated by Inge’s work. He was part of an Anchorage production of “Bus Stop,” also by Inge, in the early aughts — then he put it on locally a few years later.

“The beauty of Inge is that he was able to develop characters of ordinary people,” Duff said. “He develops especially independent, female characters that are simply strong, everyday women that survive life in kind of extraordinary ways for the time.”

That’s true of “Picnic” and all of Inge’s plays, Duff said, tales of strength exhibited by “common folks doing common things.”

The show is a simple picture of two American backyards — challenged when a young man arrives with the outside world in tow.

Donna Shirnberg plays Flo, mother to two daughters at the heart of the production. There are complex emotions and relationships at play as she navigates her connection to both girls and their own wants and dreams. On the way she experiences pride, excitement, worry and tears — all as a single mother in the 1950s.

Flo’s daughters have to choose what they want and where they’ll go to find it.

Jamie Nelson is Hal, a drifter who quickly finds himself at odds with Flo — and interested in her daughters. Nelson said his character owes a lot to the influence of a deceased father — the wisdom, expectations and role modeling he imparted and left behind.

That dynamic became much more immediate and personal, Nelson said, when his own father recently died.

“It’s been really rewarding to research how Hal is feeling in each scene, and how much of that stems from family,” he said. “Most of the character relationships in here, because it is such a small town, stem from those family relationships.”

Parents struggle with learning how much to let their children find themselves on their own and how much to keep them close to home and impart their own values and morals, he said.

Hannah Warren-Bell and Sarah Anne Sulzer play Flo’s daughters, Madge and Millie.

Madge is “the scandal,” Warren-Bell said. In a short time, on Labor Day weekend, she finds herself at the epicenter of the drama as she pushes back on her mother’s expectations and tries to figure out what she wants in her life.

“The old fashioned 1950s is get married, have kids, live your life end of story,” Warren-Bell said. “She wants more. She’s fighting for that, she just doesn’t know up from down on where to go.”

That challenge and that question is something that resonates with lots of young adults, she said. They don’t have everything figured out. They face heavy expectations. It can be hard to realize “you can always start over, anytime.”

“It’s OK not to always live up to your parent’s expectations,” she said. “You can create your own path.”

Sulzer said the play is the first she has acted in with the company — though she’s been involved with the Kenai Performers before and taken acting classes. Millie is tomboyish, she said, especially for the 1950s, and earned a scholarship to college. She wants to become a writer in New York.

The show presents “a splash of life” from 70 years ago, painting a picture of the way culture has shifted and creating plenty of room for drama as characters and their relationships strain against one another.

Local schoolteacher Rosemary is played by Tracie Sanborn. The role is complex, she said, as Rosemary balances the way she wants to be perceived by others with the desires and the pressures she feels. She wants to be viewed as independent, but she also doesn’t want to be alone.

The show is “a snapshot of small town Americana,” she said, with all the drama, comedy and romance that brings.

Tony Mika, who plays Alan, Hal’s college friend and Madge’s boyfriend, said “Picnic” is his first stage play as an actor. After previously working with some lighting, sound and videography, he said it’s a different experience being onstage performing. His character is a rich guy who learns a lesson in the show.

Everyone is looking for something in “Picnic,” he said, and “that may or may not be good for them.”

“Picnic,” set in the 1950s, also makes an impression on the way its characters and their values differ from contemporary culture, Duff said. A character in “Picnic” rebels against the culture of her time — the idea of a white picket fence and a nuclear family of four — in a way that would have been remarkable for the time.

Sanborn said the show drives people to think about the way men and women interact with one another, and the way those dynamics have shifted over time. Some of the stereotypes of the ‘50s are “shocking nowadays.”

“It forces us to look at where we were in America, those gender roles that were forced on men and women not that long ago,” she said.

Shirnberg said that though the issues at the heart of “Picnic” are decades removed from the challenges facing families today, some of the broader themes still resonate.

“It’s still the same,” she said. “Mothers wanting the best for their children, not liking their boyfriends.”

Nelson echoed that sentiment, saying that family dynamics are more important and also more strained in contemporary culture and amid different disagreements and butting heads. “Picnic” centers on the importance of family, the roots we carry and the choices we make — “to branch out further or stay truer to that core.” Either way, there’s value in understanding how a family’s influence impacts “who you are and where you’re going.”

The show is special, he said, because it has such a “focused scope.” “Picnic” is a small-scale story — “with very big characters that have very real emotions.”

“Picnic” will run in the Kenai Performers Theater on Kalifornsky Beach Road starting next weekend, on May 8-11 and 15-18. Shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be at 7 p.m. Sunday showings are a matinee at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $25 and can be purchased at kenaiperformers.org. For more information, find “Kenai Performers” on Facebook.

There will also be special “dinner and a show” offerings in partnership with Addie Camp on the two Thursdays — for more information find “Addie Camp” on Facebook.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.