A Starry, Thrilling OTHER DESERT CITIES Returns To Broadway — Review

Playwright Jon Robin Baitz extends tremendous empathy to every member of the central family in Other Desert Cities, his 2011 drama now receiving a high-wattage Broadway revival led by Seinfeld and Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Yet for myself, finding resonance in Baitz’s 15-year-old work required viewing every character on stage with a degree of retroactive contempt. 

If regarded with such disdain, the central Wyeth clan become—at least by the play’s conclusion—something fascinating. This wealthy Republican dynasty become a kind of root cause, a frightening representation of the apathy, disengagement and cynicism that led us to our current political moment. It’s an intriguing notion, at least to me. Whether it is remotely the intention of either play or production, of course, is another question. 

A critical hit and Pulitzer finalist back in 2011, Other Desert Cities is set in the deserts of Palm Springs, California in Bush-era 2004 as the Wyeths gather on Christmas Eve. Family patriarch Lyman Wyeth (Ed Harris), an actor-turned-ambassador who shifted into Republican politics under Reagan, is a kindly figure. His wife Polly Wyeth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), a former screenwriter and leftist whose politics lurched rightward to match her husband’s, has a crueler nature. Polly’s embrace of a GOP power player status has strained the dynamic with her sister Silda (Allison Janney), a fiery liberal and barely-recovering alcoholic. 

Eldest daughter Brooke (Lily Rabe) brings home an unwelcome holiday surprise: the manuscript of her new memoir, a book focused on the radicalization and death of her older brother Henry. Brooke is still struggling to recover from the loss of Henry, who joined a radical underground movement and ultimately took his own life after an attack by the group left one person dead. These are not events that her parents wish to relive, and despite an effort by younger brother Trip (Joe Keery) to defuse tensions, Brooke’s new book re-opens old wounds and dredges up long held family secrets.

Other Desert Cities is an undeniably satisfying piece of narrative drama, tightly constructed and rigorously paced. Baitz doles out information with careful precision; each mini-confrontation flows naturally into the next, building a detailed overall picture; satisfyingly deployed monologues flesh out each character with compassion and care. This is, formally speaking, a very good play. 

The deftness of Baitz’s dramatic construction offsets, here, a merely serviceable staging by director John Benjamin Hickey for this revival (at the Hudson Theatre, through January 17). Best known as an actor, Hickey’s only previous Broadway credit, Plaza Suite, was a brutally languid affair. Hickey certainly fairs better here, but his blocking is noticeably awkward, leaving actors to wander on-and-off stage uncertainly; and much of Baitz’s sharp dialogue is deployed sluggishly by actors who should be spitting the words like acid. 

Of the production’s two genuine cast standouts, one is unsurprising: stage veteran Lily Rabe is both heartbreaking and appropriately annoying as Brooke, a high-intensity individual struggling with deep wells of pain. Rabe is not exactly restrained here, but her severity feels truthful. A greater surprise is Joe Keery, of Stranger Things fame, a natural stage presence who carefully reveals the confusion and torment lurking under Trip’s surface aloofness. 

Harris and Janney, both stage veterans, feel oddly underpowered in roles that should land much stronger. The keen political operator under Lyman’s sweetness scarcely registers, while Janney’s halfhearted delivery is a far cry from the blistering intensity that Judith Light brought to the role 15 years ago. (I did not see her live, admittedly, but those YouTube clips are seared indelibly into my memory.) 

Perhaps Janney should have swapped roles with Louis-Dreyfus, who sadly cannot muster the regal status demanded by the matriarch role of Polly. (Louis-Dreyfus is also saddled with a hideous wig, a distractingly ugly gray bob.) The Seinfeld and Veep star lands her character’s cruel barbs as punchlines, and does get the laughs. But Polly’s demeaning, occasionally racist remarks should reveal a truly vicious figure. Instead, she feels sitcom-mean, à la Selina Myer, rather than truly heartless. 

Of course, one could argue that Polly isn’t supposed to be a total void of emotion, which brings us back to the play’s intriguing contemporary resonance. Baitz’s play builds to a reveal that seems intended to throw our previous understanding of Polly and Lyman into stark relief, suggesting the two are far less heartless than they appear. But for me, the reveal had much the opposite effect, seeming to confirm the pair’s obsession with pristine surface appearance over any genuine care for others. 

“You can do what you like after we’re gone!” begs Lyman at one point, imploring his daughter to delay her book. “Do you not understand that? It’s simply good manners.” 

“I am past the point of good manners,” insists Brooke. 

She’ll end up going back on these words, moved by a family secret that feels like a variation on the previous cruel lie. The tragedy of this play’s ending, to me, is that of its only character with any remaining principle ultimately giving up, and giving in to ease and comfort.  

Given how Hickey directs the final scenes, I doubt Hickey shares this viewpoint; he and Baitz likely see it as a more nuanced affair. And in 2011, perhaps it still was. But today, one can trace a lot of pain and suffering to the Pollys and Lymans of the world, power players who prized “good manners” over speaking truth. All of this gives the conclusion of Other Desert Cities a depressing kind of resonance, if perhaps not the kind its creators intended.

Other Desert Cities is now in performance at the Hudson Theatre on West 44th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.