NY Times theater critic Ben Brantley has a little fun with the revival of that 1953 clunker, “Picnic,” (hunky stranger comes to town, upsets the womenfolk. A story line that was already trite at the time of The Bacchae).
The male lead seems more Greek god than bad-boy drifter. As Brantley notes:
Presented au naturel or in a tight shirt ripped at the chest by an admirer (leaving a strategic view of a nipple), it’s a sight that arouses dangerous longings in lonely bosoms. From the moment it makes its first entrance, this is a torso named Trouble.
This play once passed for controversial. How times and mores have changed…
A Few Reasonable Words 