In the new play based on Larry Sultan’s acclaimed photo memoir Pictures from Home, a photographer is arguing with his father about the significance of old home movies depicting the family’s years-ago move from Brooklyn to California.
“It’s like this extraordinary myth, unfolding in front of you,” Larry says to his father, Irv. “I would even say that it’s the most convincing representation of the myth of the West and the Garden that I’ve ever seen.”
“The myth of the West and the Garden?” an incredulous Irv responds. He then asks his wife Jean, “Can you imagine what it would be like going to a party with Larry and his friends? They all stand around talking this way while you look for an open window to jump out of.”
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
It’s a funny line, and it’s made even funnier by being delivered by Nathan Lane, managing to turn expressions of irritation into comic arias of near operatic proportions. It also sums up the essential theme of the play, namely the subjective nature of art and how it may or may not reflect reality. If Sharr White’s comic drama Pictures From Home ultimately doesn’t manage to explore that idea in a fully satisfying manner, the play nonetheless emerges as a moving and amusing portrait of an adult son desperately trying to connect with his parents and in a way keep them alive forever through his photography.
An uncharacteristically clean-shaven Danny Burstein plays Larry, who periodically leaves his family in the Bay Area to travel to his parents’ tract home in the San Fernando Valley. He’s working on his book (which was published to great acclaim in 1992), documenting his parents’ lives via photographs, interviews, and stills from old home movies. Although his mother (Zoe Wanamker) seems perfectly amenable to the lengthy art project, especially since it means she gets to see Larry more often, his father Irv thinks that Larry is merely indulging himself in what he can only perceive as a hobby.
As we see pictures from the actual book projected in giant-sized fashion, Larry and Irv, and occasionally Jean, debate each other over family history and the photographs which, to Irv’s eye, don’t always tell the truth. He’s particularly irked by one of Danny’s favorites, a shot of him in his later years sleeping on a couch, his aged vulnerability all too apparent. The picture clashes with Irv’s image of himself as a self-made man who ascended to the position of vice-president of sales at the Schick razor company.
Their bickering becomes redundant over the course of the play’s intermissionless 105 minutes, due to the playwright’s inability to provide a cohesive dramatic structure to the piece. Much of it is certainly relatable to any adult dealing with aging parents, but after a while the arguments about such things as the parents plan to retire to Palm Desert, California feel boringly banal, like you’re eavesdropping on the private conversations of a family you barely know.
That the evening slickly if ploddingly directed by Bartlett Sher proves entertaining anyway is largely due to the formidable talents of its estimable cast, although the casting proves problematic. Lane and Burstein are so close in age that it’s hard to accept them as father and son, even if this is meant to be a memory play and Lane is outfitted with a suitable gray wig. And while showing the book’s photographs of the actual parents works beautifully onstage, it only enhances the difference between Lane and the real Irv, who looks much more physically commanding and handsome. A similarly bewigged Wanamaker seems closer to her real-life counterpart, but she tends to recede into the background, frequently wandering on and offstage without given nearly enough to do.
Burstein finds touching depths of emotion as the son struggling to connect with his irascible father, and Wanamaker has the occasional chance to shine, especially in a scene in which Larry tearfully reveals his fear of losing her. Lane, as usual, delivers an outstanding performance, mining riotous humor from nearly every line and bit of physical business, such as Irv unconsciously adopting a stiff, unnatural pose every time Larry aims the camera at him. Lane is an actor who can make being funny seem as natural as breathing, but here he also powerfully reveals his character’s underlying anger and bitterness as he feels his mortality creeping up on him.
Pictures from Home proves less artful than the photo book that inspired it, but the universality of its themes and the power of its performances make it pack an emotional punch nonetheless. It would make even more of an impact if it had been housed in a more suitable theater. (Memo to Broadway producers: Studio 54 is not an appropriate venue for small-scale, intimate dramas.)
