PICTURES FROM HOME - Reviews & News Thread- Page 3

[SouthernCakes]

Posted: 2/2/23 at 2:28am

Always interesting to see what gets produced 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 2/2/23 at 1:52pm

It's on TDF for almost every performance, and I've decided the glass seems half full here -- via range or comments -- and will go next week. Looks like an ideal Wednesday matinee piece. 

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 2/2/23 at 2:16pm

SouthernCakes said: "Always interesting to see what gets produced"

Truly. Sharr White must have money and connections. This sounds like something that would have trouble getting put up at a community theatre. 

This is what leaves writers who can't get a seat at the table scratching their heads. 

 

[quizking101]

Posted: 2/2/23 at 4:53pm

I think it's certainly ambitious in its scope of how it tries to adapt a collection of photos into a full Broadway play, but I find it hard to see this having a life past Broadway because of the heavy technical aspects of the show. (How many community theatres are going to be able to pull off extensive use of projections like this one does?)

If anything, it's an original work with ridiculously talented actors playing outside of their usual type.

[nycward]

Posted: 2/4/23 at 7:15pm

I caught this on Friday night and I think that so far I am the most enthusiastic about the evening. I found it to be thoughtful, engaging and quite moving (as well as funny of course.) The concept and usage of the film and photos was appropriate for the piece and direct communication with the audience worked well. After all, the son is a college professor and the direct engagement seemed appropriate. It was a well cast evening that mined all of the pathos and comedy. Is it because I am only a few years younger than our protagonist that thoughts of my parents flooded my senses through the evening? Perhaps. Whatever it was that spoke to me was rich and special and I certainly wasn't expecting to respond to the evening as well as I did.

The added bonus for me was that perhaps due to the very cold evening my TDF tickets were in the 4th row aisle in the orchestra. Curious how the critics respond.

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 2/4/23 at 11:04pm

This play is aggressively bad, no doubt about it.

1hr 45 minutes straight of banter, with no real plot to speak of, and all for the big reveal (spoiler alert!): we don't want our parents to die, and its hard to watch them get older. Mind blown! 

How does this get produced? I don't know. I guess with stars attached, and Nathan Lane is that star: the piece takes off whenever hes on stage, and he elevates second rate sitcom humor to watchable like no one else can. When he steps off stage, the air goes out the balloon and QUICK. 

I've seen Zoe Wanamaker burn up a stage but this role doesn't allow for it. She gets meatier stuff towards the end, but for most of it she shuffles on/off the stage as background noise to the two others. Underwritten and ignored. Burstein fares the worst-- I've never seen him hit a false note before, but I found his character absolutely insufferable. He is given a touching closing scene, but it comes outta left field and cant redeem what I found to be the unbearable 100 minutes prior. 

And as bad as it is as a piece of writing, its ruined further by being staged at Studio 54; I can't think of a worse match between production/theater. This belongs--if anywhere--off bway, in an intimate space, shaved down as a vehicle for a quiet narrator to let Nathan Lane do his thing. He does it brilliantly.

[Wallman2]

Posted: 2/5/23 at 1:00am

Had seen this earlier in the run and was invited by a friend to see it again tonight.  I thought the show had been tightened, and that the performances were sterling.  Surprised how moved I was by Burstein; Zoe Wanamaker was superb and Nathan Lane was truly wonderful.  The play itself, for my money, truly works as an exploration of the art of photography and as a very human look at the interpersonal relationships of parents and their offspring.   The humor is reflected in those relationships and I must say I laughed as much at that interplay as I have at any play in the past few seasons.  It's real, honest and unforced.  So count me on the plus side for this one.

[Ptero2]

Posted: 2/5/23 at 6:23pm

Was pleasantly surprised by this one! I only really went because of cheap TDF tickets, but I found the production to be moving and pretty funny with some great performances. Nathan Lane in particular was outstanding - so glad I got to see him live for the first time ever. I sort of echo the sentiments about Zoe's character not getting much to do, but her performance was still solid. She stumbled over a few lines but recovered quickly.

 

My ticket through TDF was the leftmost seat of left orch row C, if anyone is curious.

 

 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 2/8/23 at 10:37pm

Getting home from tonight's performance. A very interesting show and premise. I don't think it's entirely successful in what it wants to do but overall, I did enjoy it for what it was. I'd be extremely interested to know the ages of people who saw it and said they didn't enjoy it. Just my own life experience (and my friend who accompanied) this really hit home in a few different places, me in my 40's and him a bit older. I think what Burstein's character goes through as far as accepting the aging and mortality of his parents is something that starts to come more into focus the older you get (and I'm speaking broadly), so if you're younger I'm not so sure it would hit the same.

Performances I thought were all very good with Lane giving a nicely toned down "Nathan Lane". Always a pleasure to see Wannamaker on stage and Bursting was truly excellent. It's not a play I'm probably going to see again - I think about these things enough on my own - but I am glad I saw it.

[Age_of_Mendacity]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 12:16am

Saw this tonight and couldn't shake how much this just isn't a story that needs to be told (at least not like this). Amazing performances all around (though I don't think Danny was wearing a wig tonight though they generally didn't address his age). Another white Baby Boomer story aimed at white Baby Boomers just doesn't feel that revolutionary -- that said, there is an audience for it, as tonight's show was pretty fully sold.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 12:21am

What the actual hell does being white have to do with people facing their fear that their parents are going to die?

 

[Age_of_Mendacity]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 12:26am

The main crux of most of the story revolves around a person believing his family represents something meaningful about The American Dream/Epic and, to me, reeks of tge classic white Boomer mindset that dominated culture for a long time, especially visual arts in the late 80s and most of the 90s

[RippedMan]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 7:37am

The cast alone is aimed at a certain group

[BJR]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 9:10am

Yes, Broadway ticket buyers.

[nycward]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 11:40am

I think Jordan gets to an important point about age and the relevancy of this piece. Once you get in touch with your own mortality and begin the journey of "parenting your parents" (a topic that comes up often in my Psychotherapy practice), the introspection of the "circle of life" becomes quite relevant. I too am curious about the age of the people who respond well to this as opposed to those to don't regardless of any constructive criticism about the quality of the writing and conception of the production. As I posted earlier, I was projecting my own family's journey onto this canvas and was completely taken by the production.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 10:09pm

Not a Critics Pick, but it seems that Jesse Green liked more than he disliked.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/theater/pictures-from-home-review.html

[yyys]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 11:17pm

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Review-Roundup-PICTURES-FROM-HOME-Opes-On-Broadway-Starring-Nathan-Lane-Danny-Burstein-Zo-Wanamaker-20230209

[yyys]

Posted: 2/9/23 at 11:23pm

.

Updated On: 2/9/23 at 11:23 PM

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 2/10/23 at 12:02am

Radio silence from Did They Like It...

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 2/10/23 at 12:14am

EDSOSLO858 said: "Radio silence from Did They Like It..."

Intentional or not, everything about this play seems to be received with a shrug.

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 2/10/23 at 3:07am

Surprised how kind Jesse Green was to it; in this case, I shamefully find myself nodding along to the NY Post's spot-on review.

I take the previous comments points about how age might dictate the reaction to this; certainly, the issues about aging and parental loss are more prevalent in my life (my parents are in their late 60s) than someone with young parents, and less prevalent than someone with even older parents.

But i perfectly connected to the theme here. There's just nothing remotely new/insightful/inventive in how its repeated over and over again. THere's no plot, no suspense. The minimal set work did....what exactly? I like the underlying point of the play just fine, and appreciate Larry Sultan's seminal photographic work, too. But didnt need him to talk to me about it for 2 hours.

Wonder if Lane will get a nomination for this. He (and he alone) certainly deserves it.

[chanel]

Posted: 2/10/23 at 3:11am

A "thick stew" of ideas, with a good cast, though Nathan Lane screams too many of his lines.

https://chelseacommunitynews.com/2023/02/09/review-pictures-from-home-takes-a-snapshot-of-dysfunctional-family-life/

[Phillyguy]

Posted: 2/10/23 at 7:52am

I enjoyed the play but mostly because of the acting and especially Nathan Lane. I feel that the theme of mortality was really only explored at the very end and that part was touching and well done.
 

However, the bulk of the play was about this annoying character who kept trying to make something out of “nothing”. Why couldn’t he just leave his parents be and reflect on the happy memory? Is it because as an academic, he had to be critical in examining pictures from home the same way he would critique others work to find meaning? Or was he projecting his own unhappiness and therefore avoiding his own family and trying to find faults in his parents because happiness can’t be real? 

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 2/10/23 at 9:42am

DTLI - Four positive, Seven mixes, One negative

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 2/10/23 at 12:05pm

I don't think Jesse Green's review was particularly positive... calling it padded and a "tear-jerker". 

Jackson McHenry reviewing in Vulture seems to be the only reviewer to have gone to the trouble to explain why the adaptation might be working against the grain of the source material:

...this underexamined undercurrent saps some of the ruthlessness in his photos, substituting a layer of nostalgia that does the play no good. A sense of boomer awe toward Greatest Generation parents creeps in — which then, given the Broadway audience, doubles outward into the room. Filial reverence dominates, and that’s not what the pictures themselves are getting at.