Three of the theatre's most inventive, inspired and award-winning artists will bring to vivid theatrical life a comic and dramatic portrait of a mother, a father and the son who photographed their lives. Based on the landmark photo memoir by Larry Sultan, adapted to the stage by Sharr White, starring Nathan Lane, Danny Burstein and Zoë Wanamaker and staged by award-winning director Bartlett Sher, Pictures From Home will evoke memories of childhood, parenthood, and the hard-won wisdom that comes with both.
Despite their herculean efforts, though, “Pictures from Home” works better as a play to discuss over dinner than a fully engrossing viewer experience. Even as the story’s philosophical queries arise -- sometimes with little warning— it too often feels just like you’re eavesdropping on your neighbors’ banal conversations. Moreover, much of the play is reminiscent of watching someone else’s home movies, which we all know is less fascinating for the viewer than the taker. (And to be clear, you are sometimes doing that literally, as the Sultans’ actual home movies and photographs are projected on the back wall of Michael Yeargan’s uninspiring set.)
Throughout the 1980s, the photographer Larry Sultan spent close to a decade photographing his parents at their kitschy home for what would eventually become Pictures From Home, a photo book that evokes the feeling of the American Dream set out to dry in the Southern California sun. Now adapted by Sharr White into a play of the same name, ably directed by Bartlett Sher, these images come to life through a trio of veteran actors, with Danny Burstein in the role of artist as eternal child, and creates an often moving portrait of family as an uncapturable, captivating subject.
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