‘Picnic’ Improves After Change in Weather

COSTA MESA — Playwright-director George S. Kaufman was in Atlantic City during the out-of-town tryout of a new play having trouble with its first and third acts. He ran into a friend strolling the boardwalk who asked what he was doing in town.

“I’m down here with an act,” Kaufman replied.

That’s not an unusual situation. Director Mario Lescot is at the Theatre District with an act.

The play is William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Picnic,” his steamy summer romance about Kansas drifter Hal Carter who woos, wins and absconds with local beauty Madge Owens. It’s a powerful piece of writing, with a dramatic through-line that can easily be set out of kilter. That’s what has happened here.

When Lescot has his actors settle down after the intermission, his “Picnic” finds itself. The tones are honest and thoroughly based within Inge’s world.

P.J. Agnew as Hal gives a strong performance, tempered with a feeling of Hal’s hidden insecurities and needs, and Madge, played with a good sharp edge by Kathleen Kaefer, becomes the small-town girl, looking at the horizon, of the playwright’s intent.

David Rousseve is marriage-shy shopkeeper Howard Bevans, and in Act 2 his desperate acceptance of the wedded state is touching and truthful, with a bittersweet aura of the perennial bachelor who got caught.

The problem is the first act. For some reason, Lescot has uncharacteristically allowed his actors to overplay shamefully, particularly in the boyish badinage between Hal and his college ex-roommate Alan Seymour, played unevenly and superficially by Eric Anderson. Along with Rousseve’s equally juvenile shenanigans in this act, Hal and Alan’s encounters look prepubescent at best.

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Susan E. Taylor’s Rosemary, the schoolteacher who traps Howard, is disconcerting in her tendency toward snappishness, a shrike with a nasty streak a mile wide. Taylor has none of the quiet need that usually makes Rosemary attractive. Jessica Learned, as Madge’s younger sister Millie, fares better but needs more elan to be really sympathetic.

Suzan Kane as the girls’ mother, and Jo Black Jacob as their neighbor keep themselves within bounds but stay on the surface and don’t dig deeply into their characters’ inner workings. Valerie Aronson and Lori Hurite are just a little too obnoxious and stereotypical as Rosemary’s schoolmarm friends. In the small role of Bomber, the paperboy and teenage Lothario, Booth Fellers is excellent, the only one who seems to be playing the same character in both acts.

There is no program credit for sound design, but the effects seem to be coming from odd directions, and they are heard for only a few seconds each, to announce “train” or “auto,” then mysteriously go silent. All the required sounds in the play should linger and echo the lonely, heat-limp Kansas summer that Inge captures so well in his script.

* “Picnic,” Theatre District, 2930 Bristol St., Costa Mesa. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends May 12. $15. (714) 435-4043. Running time: 2 hours.

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Jo Black Jacob: Helen Potts

P.J. Agnew: Hal Carter

Jessica Learned: Millie Owens

Kathleen Kaefer: Madge Owens

Suzan Kane: Flo Owens

Susan E. Taylor: Rosemary Sydney

Eric Anderson: Alan Seymour

Valerie Aronson: Irma Kronkite

Lori Hurite: Christine Schoenwalder

David Rousseve: Howard Bevans

Booth Fellers: Bomber

A Theatre District production of William Inge’s drama. Produced by Bonnie Vise. Directed by Mario Lescot. Lighting design: David Jacobi. Stage managers: Sharon Evans, Bruce Beckman.