Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities is actually two plays with the same characters. Act one starts as a lightweight domestic comedy about a successful showbiz (and literary) family -- writers, an ex-movie star/ambassador (Stacy Keach) who is a moneyed, right-wing Republican; his dominant wife (Stockard Channing), their son, a TV producer (Thomas Sadoski), their disturbed daughter who has written a book about the family (Rachel Griffiths), particularly about her revolutionary dead brother. This act is liberally sprinkled with humorous lines at the sit-com level: set up-joke, setup-joke, quip. When it reaches plateau, enter a tornado: Judith Light as the aunt.
The interactions and views are simplistic politically and relationship-wise. Other Desert Cities does have a heavy premise: the repressed child may explode, and the book writer and the dead son were indeed terribly damaged by repression. But in this first act the drama is undercut by the quips. The humor, full of easy incongruities that give a momentary tickle, lacks real bite. The audience is mostly amused -- they are, after all, used to television rhythm. Act two becomes a strong viable drama with little humor as the consequences of past interactions are brought to the fore with revelations. There is much sturm und drang (for me, the overwrought is overwritten), but the excellent actors – the reason to see this rather long play – get to show their range as they reveal their characters’ inner lives with conviction. A corny coda ends the evening.
Joe Mantello directs with mostly fine pacing, John Lee Beatty gives us an excellent domestic set, Kenneth Posner’s lighting illuminates properly, and costumes by David Zinn are just right.
