Picnic, William Inge's durable, Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the longings of women in a small town in Kansas, gets a small-screen retelling 9 PM (ET/PT) April 16 on CBS-TV.
Gretchen Mol stars as Madge, the elder of two young sisters who is charmed by a drifter (Josh Brolin) over a Labor Day picnic. Mary Steenburgen and Bonnie Bedelia also star.
The three-act play premiered on Broadway in 1953, winning the Pulitzer and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. It played 477 performances and was made into a successful film with William Holden.
Mol, dubbed early on in a Vanity Fair cover story as a major star on the ascent, appeared in the films "Donnie Brasco," "Rounders" and "Girl 6."
Inge was applauded for his unsentimental view of repressed characters in workaday Midwest America in such plays as Bus Stop and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. -- By Kenneth Jones
