Theater Review: Other Desert Cities

Rachel Griffiths, Stockard Channing and Stacy Keach. Photo: Joan Marcus

Family Looks for an Oasis in Their Barren Desert
By Lauren Yarger
Cracks in the hard desert ground of the emotions of die-hard Republicans Lyman and Polly Wyeth (Stacy Keach, Stockard Channing) might not be able to weather the heat of controversy a tell-all book about them and their terrorist son will bring in Jon Robin Baitz' Other Desert Cities getting a Broadway incarnation after last-season's off-Broadway success for Lincoln Center Theater.

Director Joe Mantello returns, along with Channing and Keach, but some of the intimacy and subtle meaning in Baitz text is lost in the transition from the Mitzi E. Newhouse to the Booth Theatre.

The Wyeths' happiness about a visit from their long-absent, ultra-liberal daughter, Brooke (Rachel Griffiths), fades when she announces that despite her parents' support during her breakdown following her brother's death, she has written a soon-to-be-released memoir about the bombing incident and what it was like growing up as the child of a former Hollywood actor/ambassador and his wife who enjoyed lunches at the club with Ronnie and Nancy.

Playing peacemaker is Brooke's brother, Trip (Thomas Sadoski), who finds it hard to get very serious about anything. He is, after all, the producer of the show "Jury of Your Peers" in which celebrity jurors decide real cases. Finding a way to get his parents to support their daughter's writing gift while convincing his sister to take her parents' feelings into account might just prove to be a mirage, however. The task is made even more difficult by Polly's sister and former writing partner, alcoholic Silda Grauman (Judith Light), who has been feeding Brooke inside dirt for the book while trying to dry out while living with her sister and brother-in-law at their Palm Springs home. There might not be enough sand in the dessert to cover their public lives. (John Lee Beatty designs sets that create the feeling of being in a desert).

Baitz creates interesting characters (regardless of where your political affiliations lie) who care about each other and masterfully uses dialogue to reveal matters going on beneath the surface (David Zinn's costumes also tell us a lot about the characters). There's a good sprinkling of humor (some of it political) throughout to keep the tone from becoming too serious. This is a family which understands the sentiment Trip finally expresses: that in the end, all that will mattered is how you have loved.

Other Desert Cities runs at the Booth Theatre, 222 West 45th St., NYC. For tickets call 800-432-7250. Note: Sadoski continues in the role through Sunday, Jan.  8 (with the exception of a three-week period from Tuesday, Dec. 8 through Sunday, Dec. 25 when the role of Trip Wyeth will be played by Matthew Risch). After Jan. 8, Justin Kirk steps into the role.

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