“Other Desert Cities,” like so many plays, is about a family with issues, to say the very least.
asserted
Cities → say → least
A free-spirited Manhattan writer named Brooke jets to sunny Palm Springs to visit her well-to-do mom, dad, TV producer brother and leftist aunt for Christmas.
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writer → name → Christmas
She’s very New York, they’re very California circa 2004.
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they → ’ → 2004
Her buttoned-up Republican parents were close friends of Ronald and Nancy Reagan from their days working alongside them in Hollywood — mom as a screenwriter with her sister, and dad as an actor like Ronnie.
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parents → button → Ronnie
Now, their downcast daughter has brought along a surprise lump of coal as a present: galleys of her new memoir, which airs their dirtiest laundry.
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which → bring → laundry
Those toxic pages have the potential to destroy them.
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pages → have → them
But the likeable enough Broadway revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s sharp-tongued drama, which opened Sunday night at the Hudson Theatre, takes these people’s competing personalities way too far.
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which → open → personalities
Quite by accident, everybody in this midcentury modern home — not just Brooke — becomes the black sheep.
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everybody → become → home
Director John Benjamin Hickey’s discordant production starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Allison Janney, Ed Harris, Joe Keery and Lily Rabe fails to click when it’s anything more than one person tossing off mean zingers.
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it → star → zingers
Each actor has their moments, most are fine and one is excellent.
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one → have → moments
Not for a second, however, does anybody believe that the Wyeths are a real family or something other than an impressive assemblage of celebrities.
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Wyeths → believe → celebrities
Making her Broadway debut, Louis-Dreyfus has the toughest assignment as Polly, one of those viperous, monster mothers that are a hallmark of the American theater.
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that → make → theater
The formidable Stockard Channing played her on Broadway last time, and I saw Deanna Dunagan of “August: Osage County” don the tennis dress in Chicago 13 years ago.
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Dunagan → play → Chicago
Louis-Dreyfus has the requisite comic chops, obviously.
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Dreyfus → have → chops
And you can understand why they’d clamor for the actress who played unhinged VP Selina Meyer to take her on.
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who → understand → her
After Brooke (Rabe) arrives to a tellingly contrasting image — a spiky Christmas tree situated in front of idyllic palms behind the window — the early goings are terrifically funny.
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goings → arrive → window
The “Veep” and “Seinfeld” dynamo can bat a line like “this water needs vodka for flavor” right out of the park.
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water → bat → park
But once Brooke reveals that the book she’s been working on is not a novel after all, but an explosive tell-all, the jokes subside and the topic of her dead brother Henry bubbles up.
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topic → reveal → brother
The production unfortunately cools down.
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production → cool → ?
Decades earlier, when Brooke was a little girl, Henry joined an extremist group and later killed himself — a stain on the picture-frame-insert-perfect family.
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Henry → join → family
Brooke, who’s been cobbling together magazine travel pieces to make ends meet, has decided to finally use her writing to deal with the trauma of her past, which she believes her parents directly caused.
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parents → cobble → past
And from there, it’s bombshell, bombshell, bombshell.
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it → ’ → ?
What’s odd is that in this revival, the earth-shaking revelations aren’t as energizing as the earlier one-liners.
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revelations → ’ → liners
Sure, the story holds our interest, especially if you don’t know where it’s going.
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it → hold → interest
Vital moments aren’t directed tightly or focused enough by Hickey.
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moments → direct → Hickey
And his cast seems left to their own devices.
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cast → seem → devices
The down-on-the-ranch Harris as Polly’s husband Lyman has that unteachable Robert Redford quality you’d expect of an old-school star who’s taken refuge in the mountains.
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who → have → mountains
Unlike Polly, Lyman chooses passivity.
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Lyman → choose → passivity
And so Harris can get by on presence alone.
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Harris → get → presence
Janney brings a much-needed jolt to the large living room as Aunt Silda, a recovering alcoholic who hilariously cuts through Polly’s BS with exceptional wit.
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who → bring → wit
That is, until her own wise-cracking character has a life-altering shift and the actress recedes like most everybody else does.
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everybody → crack → shift
One person who cannot be marked down for lack of intensity is Rabe, who’s sadly been away from Broadway hiding out in Ryan Murphy’s dungeon for 14 years.
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who → mark → years
Stalking the stage like she’s at an Old West shootout, Rabe is a towering stage presence, and here she goes absolutely nuclear.
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she → stalk → shootout
Yet her enthusiasm creates an equal-but-opposite problem as Louis-Dreyfus’ hesitancy: During the climax, Rabe is in full-Medea mode while the others are quipping away on an episode of “Arrested Development.”
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others → create → Development
Keery, a real talent, plays Brooke’s younger brother Trip, whom the family mocks for being a part of a lousy TV show called “Jury of Your Peers.”
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family → play → Peers
Keery ably commands the stage during his riveting second act speech when Trip finally vomits out his repressed feelings about his screwed-up clan and reveals himself to be the only relative with his head on straight.
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himself → command → head
That scorcher received the only extended applause of the night.
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scorcher → receive → night
Baitz’s script still shines through, and is a pleasure to watch under the majority of circumstances.
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script → shin → circumstances
But Hickey’s placid revival too easily caves to its environment — dry, beautiful, relaxing and fun — when what it should be doing is fighting like hell against it.
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doing → cave → it
The Aporia
