Families are interesting. They all come with their own unique histories, prejudices and mysteries. Jon Robin Baitz’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play “Other Desert Cities,” set in the years following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, explores harmful ideologies, grief, depression, memory and how secrets can wrap themselves around a family, slowly choking it from the inside out. Revived for the first time since 2011, this production, directed by John Benjamin Hickey, is gutting, witty and painfully timely.
“Other Desert Cities” opens on Christmas Eve 2004, at the Wyeths’ palatial Palm Springs home. Polly (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Lyman (Ed Harris), a former film writer and old Hollywood movie star, respectively, are thrilled to have their adult children home for the holidays. Their son, Trip (Joe Keery), resides in Los Angeles and works as a producer for early-aughts reality TV shows. Their daughter, Brooke (Lily Rabe), is a writer emerging from a near-decade-long battle with debilitating depression. Until now, she has remained sequestered on the East Coast. The Wyeths have an especially full house since Polly’s sister, Silda (Allison Janney), is living with them following yet another stint in rehab for her alcohol addiction.
The play opens in a sprawling, spotless beige living room adorned with a massive Christmas tree topped with a Star of David (honoring Polly’s heritage), courtesy of scenic designer Scott Pask. Polly, Lyman and the kids return from a game of tennis at the nearby country club. The foursome fret and fuss over one another, mostly because of their opposing political views. The elder Wyeths are staunch Republicans. Trip and Brooke cringe at their parents’ casual racism as they decide together how to spend the rest of the day before planning to indulge in a lobster Christmas Eve dinner back at the club.
Though Brooke has finally ventured to the West Coast after a six-year absence, her motivation isn’t just a friendly visit. Instead, she anxiously reveals to her parents that her second book is set to be published in the new year. And it’s not a work of fiction, as Lyman and Polly expected. Instead, it is a memoir that chronicles the most tragic event in the family’s history. Brooke has written about her older brother Henry, who died by suicide decades prior following his involvement in a cult bombing which left a man dead. It was such a horrific incident in the Wyeths’ lives that neither Lyman nor Polly can bear to speak their eldest son’s name. In fact, they fled Los Angeles after his death to hide in the desert.
Brooke’s revelation effectively ends the merriment. Lyman initially tries to be a peacemaker, saying he will not read the book, but he asks that Brooke refrain from publishing it until his and Polly’s deaths. Polly, by contrast, reads the manuscript and is immediately filled with anguish and all-consuming fury. Her solution is to disown Brooke, should the memoir ever see the light of day. What commences is a series of violent screaming matches between the mother and daughter before Lyman eventually reveals a long-held secret, bringing Brooke to her knees. After all, the truth often depends on who tells it.
“Other Desert Cities” is a resounding piece of theater, not simply because of the subject matter but because of the performances. The entire cast works as a seamless ensemble, switching from quippy wit, including Polly’s assertion that sarcasm is “only for teenagers and homosexuals,” to heartbreaking and volatile outbursts rife with the pain of a family standing on a foundation of lies and hypocrisy.
An exquisite portrait of 21st-century Americana, centering on a family divided by politics, ideology and a hidden history, “Other Desert Cities” is smart, authentic and deeply satisfying. Dark and haunting in one breath and hilariously raw in the next, it’s a play whose intensity has never felt more profound.