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| Allison Janney and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Emilio Madrid) |
"Telling the truth is a very expensive hobby," according to one character in the politically charged family drama Other Desert Cities. Maybe so, but it's cheaper than keeping secrets, as this starry revival of Jon Robin Baitz's 2011 play demonstrates with its sharp focus and intensity.
Credit goes to director John Benjamin Hickey and his stellar cast, especially Lily Rabe, who feverishly pours herself into her role, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, making an impressive Broadway debut. Part of an ensemble that includes Ed Harris, Allison Janney and Stranger Things' Joe Keery, they bring this troubled privileged family to vibrant life, as a liberal writer fights with her conservative parents to tell the tragic story of her brother's life.
That writer is Rabe's Brooke Wyeth, an emotionally fraught woman who lives 3,000 miles from her parents, entertainment industry professionals turned Republicans. She returns to her family's grand home in the desert city of Palm Springs and springs a whopper of surprise on them on Christmas Eve 2004: She's written a book about Henry, her older brother, who committed suicide more when he was around 20, after he'd left home and taken up with a cult that committed a deadly criminal act.
Brooke blames her mother Polly (Louis-Dreyfus) and father Lyman (Harris) for their brother's downward spiral and subsequent death, yet expects them to support her accusatory family memoir. It's a cry for help, to talk about the absent sibling that her parents never mention and that youngest sibling Trip (Keery) barely remembers. The only one on her side seems to be Polly's alcoholic sister Silda (Janney), who's staying at the Wyeth home after a recent relapse.
Although two and a half hours is more than time than enough time to watch the Wyeth clan bicker and hurl accusations, it's also a robust opportunity for Baitz to wrestle with themes of familial responsibility, what happens when people are defined by their politics and the devastating effects of secrets on relationships.
And this production shows how time can change perceptions. When it was first produced 15 years ago, during the Obama administration, Other Desert Cities felt like an indictment of Republican values. Now, in the age of Trump, Polly and Lyman come across as softer, opportunists who used politics to their advantage. They may not be forgivable to all but they're undeniably human.
