Studies for a Portrait

Daniel Reitz

The impending death of an iconic painter brings out primal instincts in three successive generations of the men in his life: his protective partner 30 years his junior, his partner’s even younger partner, and the artist’s embittered former lover. Jockeying for position and control of his legacy, they use the sharpest tools they have at their disposal: sex, domination, and art.

Tristram Summers, Simon Wright, Travis Oliver, and John Atterbury, Kings Head Theatre, London. (Photograph by Simon Harris.)
John Atterbury, Kings Head Theatre, 2010. (Photograph by Julie Osman.)
Cast Requirements

4 men

Set Description

Flexible Set

Honors

Time Out London, "The Ten Best Theatre of 2009"

Press

"This is a perfect peach of a play ... Sexual desire is of course prominently one of the threads running through the play, how it begins, ends and is enjoyed when flourishing. Reitz gives his characters a wide range of flaring insults ... But in addition the play shows us, with poignancy and wit, how love can alter us for good or bad or both together. There is worldly wisdom here, but true wisdom too."
--The Times of London

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Press

"An acerbic and moving portrait of an unconventional ménage à trios."
--Time Out London (Critics’ Choice)

"A fascinating and amusing study of life amongst the ugly rich."
--The Stage

"This is bravura writing: fluid, acerbic and incisive. It's exhilarating and stimulating ... virtuosic ... laced with humour while not avoiding the messiness of human (and gay) relations."
--MusicOMH

"We are shown the operations of the art market at a level beyond the headlines of the Christie’s auctions, beyond the cold positioning of artworks in titanic institutions; we see where the money goes, and see where it goes beyond that. We are shown the extent to which humans can manipulate alongside their capacity for tenderness, and, through heated exchanges, we are encouraged to think of the art widows. These are people who gain immense wealth when the legend they love dies, but who are forever doomed to live with the legend, immersed in a responsibility to absence, alone in a world that owns what they loved."
--Off-WestEnd.com

"At last. A gay play that isn’t a gay play. Refreshingly, the fact that all four characters in Studies for a Portrait happen to be homos is almost completely inconsequential. And rightly so ... super-talented writer Daniel Reitz has avoided every possible over-done cliché of the typical gay stereotype and the result is completely brilliant."
--Pink Paper

Production and Development History

Produced: Kings Head Theatre, London; White Bear Theatre, London; Oval House Theatre, London.

Developed and workshopped: Naked Angels; New York Stage and Film; Primary Stages.