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Ever hear of the Pickle Family Circus? It was a purebred Northern
California creation from the 1970s, evolving out of the satirical San Francisco
Mime Troupe and adding a whole lot of juggling. One of the Pickles was Bill
Irwin, who later clowned on Broadway in Fool
Moon and then won a Tony for a deadly serious role in the 2005 revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (On
film, he was the dad in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel
Getting Married; children know him as Mr. Noodle from Sesame Street.)
I knew about Bill Irwin. But not until I saw Humor Abuse at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum did
I ever heard of Larry Pisoni. Humor Abuse is a fascinating one-man
show in which Larry’s son, Lorenzo Pisoni, grapples with his father’s legacy.
Lorenzo’s parents, Larry and Peggy, were Pickle Family founders. From a very
young age, their young son was incorporated into the show, performing intricate
and sometimes dangerous clowning routines. Lorenzo loved circus life, but
winning favor from his hard-to-please father was sometimes tough. It was only
in later years that Lorenzo came to realize the scope of Larry’s personal
failings, and the extent to which they kept his dad from having a happy life.
An important point comes out late in the show: when a baby
boy was born to the senior Pisonis, Larry gave Peggy two name choices for the
new arrival: Lorenzo or Geppetto. As it happened, Larry’s own clown name was
Lorenzo Pickle. And when pint-sized Lorenzo was old enough to perform, he joined
his father for a Pinocchio routine, in which the spotlight was on Larry in the
Geppetto role. So, whichever name Peggy
had chosen, she would have been naming her new son after his dad’s alter ego.
Poignantly, when his circus years were long gone, Larry started introducing
himself socially as Lorenzo. The real Lorenzo, of course, was disquieted by
this borrowing of his personal nomenclature. So a play that’s chockfull of fun
and games turns out, after all, to be an exploration of identity, and what it
means to be a father’s son.
Seeing Humor Abuse made
me realize how many father-and-son pairs exist in Hollywood. Some have been
mutually supportive. (See, happily, Tom and Colin Hanks.) Others have had
relationships that are fraught with tension. Peter Fonda, always at odds with
his famous father Henry, consistently chose roles that the older Fonda would
have found offensive. Just try imagining what the heroically all-American Henry
Fonda, who’d starred as Abe Lincoln and Tom Joad, would have thought of his son’s
renegade biker roles in The Wild Angels and
Easy Rider. Many’s the Hollywood son
who has never managed to live up to his father’s level of accomplishment and
acclaim. (I’m thinking of Patrick Wayne, who was given forgettable roles in his
father’s The Searchers, The Alamo, and The Green Berets.) But it also can be awkward when a son far
surpasses his father’s screen achievements. Harry Hoffman, father of Dustin,
was once a set decorator for Columbia Pictures. When a scene in The Graduate was being shot in the lobby
of L.A.’s Ambassador Hotel, Harry was invited to watch. As Dustin, in his first
big movie role, cringed with embarrassment, his dad tried to get involved,
offering his advice on the filmmaking process to anyone who’d listen.
Rance Howard was and is a working actor, one of those
familiar faces that pop up in small roles in big films. His son Ron became a celebrity
at age 5. More later about their very special relationship. (Maybe I’ll save it
for Fathers’ Day.)
