![]() ![]() This exploration of Larry Sultan, portrayed dutifully by the wonderful Danny Burstein (Broadway’s Moulin Rouge! Fiddler on the Roof), has all the ingredients for a psychodynamic dream, but sadly, as written for the stage by White and directed with an eye for trying by Bartlett Sher (Broadway/West End’s Oslo To Kill a Mockingbird), the resulting perspective on adulthood and attachment fails to find its way. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.Īs a psychotherapist who focuses his work on the importance of attachment and familial history, the idea resonates, as I genuinely believe that to understand ourselves and our relationships, we have to look back and figure out all that has been handed down, “ one razer blad sale at a time,” by our parents, and what they modeled and taught us about love. Nathan Lane and Danny Burstein in Broadway’s Pictures From Home. And as vocalized by his father, even as he mocked and participated, this photographic art project was somewhat demented, but yet, in spite of it all, it did become a book, and that book has now been turned into a play. Sultan, the real-life figure at the center of this play, did this for years, photographing, interviewing, and writing about his parents, and his relationship with them, even as his father was desperate for him to “ bring this thing to a close“. It is, in theory, an interesting focus, to zoom in on the epic ceelebrations of the family, in order to understand attachment through the lens of old photographs and video footage. “ You pick and you pick!” Investigating, it seems, as a personal project, is steeped in familial attachment and engagement, at least here, in the framework of the new, very starry Broadway production of playwright Sharr White’s (The Other Place The True) family drama, based on the photo memoir of the same name by Larry Sultan. Pictures From Home: Studio 54, through April 30. In conclusion Pictures From Home is touching and the acting makes it worth the ticket price. In the end Larry, in his own way loves his parents and can not say good-bye. The character of Larry never really grows or expands and if he had this play could have been so much more. The most moving part of the whole play is when Lane confronts his son, though Larry really does not answer. When he starts to limp, to posing and losing his memory, we laugh, we cry, we feel. Wanamaker’s shows us the depth, strength and flaws that plagued the women of the 50’s, but it is Lane who makes us care. In the meantime, racism, death, aging out, frustration at one’s accomplishments, sexist views and how people were in the 50’s and 60’s, mortality and love all come into play.īartlett Sher’s direction allows the play to seem timeless and keeps it at a clip.īurstein, does his best with this unlikable character. Larry’s project in all takes ten years to complete. Playwright Sharr White breaks the action into scenes such as “investigation,” “The Silent Treatment,” and “Departures”. Larry, uses his parents to achieve his dream and what the play becomes is how children of this generation blame their parents and expect everything from them and yet do not take responsibility for themselves. Her job is considered a hobby, though she is more successful. Larry’s mother is the woman who is dressed to the tee, drank to deal with the loneliness and boredom and becomes successful in real estate when the family needs her help. The father is handsome, a traveling salesman who believes that he should support the family, cheats, drinks, who is aged out of his job and now is supported by his wife. The parents are products of their own generation. Larry is a photographer who teaches, but is working on a “art project”about his family, that nobody understands, including Larry. All the characters break the fourth wall, as photo’s of the real people appear on the wall. They love their son, but do not really understand why this married father of two who lives in San Francisco, is coming back to his family home in the San Fernando Valley, every other weekend combing through old home movies and capturing the couple aging. His mother Jean (Zoë Wanamaker), is much more forgiving of his intrusion, than his father Irving (the fabulous Nathan Lane). He is trying to capture something elusive, a truth that he manipulates by posing his parents and taking unflattering pictures of them. Larry (Danny Burstein), has been hounding his parents at this point for 8 years. Danny Burstein, Nathan Lane, Photo by Julieta Cervantes ![]()
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