The drama of the everyday and the ordinary are given vivid, rich life in Pictures from Home, Sharr White’s stage adaptation of Larry Sultan’s 1992 photo memoir, staged with precision by Bartlett Sher and acted with compassion and depth by three of the strongest actors from Broadway and the West End, Danny Burstein, Nathan Lane, and Zoe Wanamaker.
The premise is not particularly promising for a theater piece. In the early 1980s, Sultan, a photographer and teacher, began reviewing old home movies and photos, interviewing and taking shots of his mother and father in their San Fernando Valley home, searching for a hidden meaning in his childhood, their marriage and careers and his interaction with them. Such a conceptual, introspective construct might be fine for a book, but a play requires conflict. White brings the conflict front and center by emphasizing the fraught dynamic between contemplative Larry (Burstein) and his competitive father Irving (Lane).
During the main action of the evening, Larry’s project has been going on for several years, involving frequent visits from the son’s home in San Francisco away from his own wife and kids. Mom and dad—particularly dad—are starting to get more than a little antsy. “When is this thing gonna end?” Irving inquires with annoyance more than once. White mixes in the added irritant of the parents’ imminent retirement to Palm Desert, selling their house and thus putting an end to Larry’s endless picking at the past.
As Larry probes deeper into his family’s history and asking uncomfortable questions, tensions mount until an explosive confrontation during a family barbecue. Director Sher brilliantly stages this sequence, rising the exterior walls of Michael Yeargan’s appropriately lush setting into the flies, exposing the family’s emotional vulnerabilities as their physical shelter vanishes (Sher also used this disappearing set device in his revival of Awake and Sing which also starred Wanamaker.)
Simmering resentments are physicalized with significant pieces of stage business as the meal is prepared. All three actors perfectly employ their actions to define their subtextual emotions. Burstein captures Larry’s desire to understand and capture his family’s images by insisting on making the hamburgers his way, without Worcestershire Sauce. Lane demonstrates Irving’s overbearing need to control by reshaping the meat and splashing the sauce on. Wanamaker as the mother Jean, wields a knife at her husband when he tries to tell her how to cut the vegetables. It’s a perfect scene and displays the colliding motivations with economy and humor, typical of the entire play and production. Yeargan’s set, Jennifer Tipton’s sensitive lighting and particularly 59 Productions’ projection design with photos of Sultan’s actual parents create a physical environment of overlapping memory, image and the characters’ perceptions of them.
But it’s not a perfect evening, at nearly two hours with no intermission, White does get repetitive, with the essential clash of views getting airings more than a few times. We hear Irv decry Larry’s choice of career, lack of ambition and clinging to his parents a bit too often. Another weakness is Jean’s not being given enough space to air her grievances. Towards the end, she finally gets to explain her position in the family and her anger at Irv for minimizing her success as a real-estate agent after he has retired as a sales executive for Schick Razor Blades. Though Wanamaker gives these moments and her entire role full weight and strength, her part is not equally balanced with the other two.
Despite these flaws, Pictures is gripping and heart wrenching, despite the familiarity of the story. Irv’s restlessness and his adoration of surface-oriented success and the images of the typical American family echo the more tragic tropes of Death of a Salesman. Lane’s magnificent creation of Irv’s drive and bluster makes us yearn for his interpretation of Willy Loman. But, his performance here is still satisfying. His spot-on timing and physicalization of the 70-ish Irv capture a once vital man’s resistance to decline. Burstein beautifully conveys Lenny’s insecure and unsure stumbling towards a truer understanding of his past and his parents. Though she has less direct action than her castmates, Wanamaker creates a fully-fleshed, adoring, miffed mother, exasperated by her son and husband, whom she loves and who can set her off. Pictures contains all the intimacy, anger, rancor, sweetness and sorrow in your typical American family.
