num_pages: 77
description: The play takes place on Labor day Weekend in the joint back yards of two middle-aged widows. The one house belongs to Flo Owens, who lives there with her two maturing daughters, Madge and Millie, and a boarder who is a spinster school teacher. The other house belongs to Helen Potts, who lives with her elderly and invalid mother. Into this female atmosphere comes a young man named Hal Carter, whose animal vitality seriously upsets the entire group. Hal is a most interesting character, a child of parents who ignored him, self-conscious of his failings and his position behind the eight ball. Flo is sensitively wary of temptations for her daughters. Madge, bored with being only a beauty, sacrifices her chances for a wealthy marriage for the excitement Hal promises. Her sister, Millie, finds her balance for the first time through the stranger's brief attention. And the spinster is stirred to make an issue out of the dangling courtship that has brightened her life in a dreary, minor way.
language: English
title: Picnic
titlecomplete: Picnic
genres: Theatre, Drama, Classics, American, Plays, Read For School, School, Romance, 20th Century, Fiction
ratings_count: 3871
places: Kansas
awards: awardedAt: -536428800000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: Drama, awardedAt: -536428800000
name: New York Drama Critics' Circle Award
category: Best American Play
publisher: Dramatists Play Service