Other Desert Cities

Other Desert Cities, at Broadway's Booth Theatre
Gratuitous Violins rating: ***1/2 out of ****

I've been hooked on a few nighttime soap operas over the years, most notably Dallas and Falcon Crest. But there hasn't been one recently that captured my interest until Brothers & Sisters, which ABC canceled in May after a five-year run.

So a big part of my excitement about Other Desert Cities stemmed from knowing that it was written by Jon Robin Baitz, the creator of Brothers & Sisters, and included a cast member from the series, Rachel Griffiths.

In some ways, Other Desert Cities felt like a very special episode of Brothers & Sisters: it revolves around the problems of a wealthy and prominent family. All the nighttime soap ingredients are present - drug addiction, depression, alcoholism. Family secrets are about to be revealed and a long-buried scandal unearthed. There's a black sheep, too.

Now, I don't mean any of that as a knock. Popular fiction is tough to get right and I'd rather read John Grisham than John Updike. And I liked Other Desert Cities a lot. It's a highly polished work with terrific performances. Baitz has a good ear for dialogue. The direction by Joe Mantello makes the action clean and clear. But it seemed like something I'd seen before.

Heading the family are Stacy Keach and Stockard Channing as Lyman and Polly Wyeth. He's a former actor turned Republican Party official and ambassador. She's a former screenwriter. They travel in the same circles as the Reagans. (When the scandal broke, Polly mustered all of her strength to get back in the good social graces of Ron and Nancy.)

When the play opens, it's Christmas 2004 and the family has gathered at the Wyeths' home in Palm Springs. John Lee Beatty has designed a living room that looks beautiful in a rustic kind of way, with a huge stone wall, but not especially comfortable.

The source of tension is Brooke's plan to publish a tell-all memoir which, needless to say, is upsetting to her family.

I've loved Griffiths from TV and movies and she's riveting onstage as well, playing a vulnerable woman suffering from depression who's about to let out all of this smoldering anger toward her parents. A novelist with one successful book, the memoir has enabled her to break through her writer's block. She feels compelled to publish it, no matter how much pain it causes.

As her brother Trip, a producer of highly successful reality-TV shows, Thomas Sadoski is more easygoing. Much younger, he doesn't share her intense anger. Baitz makes an interesting point here, how siblings can have widely divergent memories of their childhood and how parents can change over time so that maybe they were raised differently.

Channing and Judith Light as two very different sisters are a joy to watch as well. Polly is the picture of composure while Light's Silda is messy, an acerbic alcoholic. They're Jewish but Polly seemed pretty WASPY. Silda explains this with one of the play's best lines: "We're Jewish girls who lost our accents along the way but that wasn't enough for you, you had to become a goy."

While I liked the way Baitz explored the family dynamic, his attempt at getting political struck me as more cliched. Keach's Lyman fulminates against the generation that ruined this country with their drugs, free sex and radical politics. Brooke and Silda rail against the intolerance of conservative Republicans.

What stood out for me was the way Other Desert Cities explores the heart of this fractious family. Polly and Lyman don't share Brooke's view that her memoir will be cathartic. It forces them to come clean about secrets that they've been keeping for a very long time. (To be honest, the plot twist wasn't very original.)

Baitz gives them both powerful, emotional speeches. For all the coldness and harshness with which Brooke tries to portray them, Lyman and Polly Wyeth are caring people. The play is a testament to a parent's love for their child - no matter what. It's also a testament to what very rich and powerful people are able to do for their children.

Baitz left Brothers & Sisters after a year due to disagreements with the network over the show's direction. At the time, he decried "the demographic demands that have turned America into an ageist and youth-obsessed nation drives the storylines younger and younger, whiter and whiter, and with less and less reflection of the real America.

I'll give Baitz credit for including older characters in Other Desert Cities but he's written a play pretty similar to what he's criticized the networks for doing. It's as white as can be and not exactly reflective of the "real America."

Still, it was tremendously entertaining to see a juicy family drama onstage just like the ones that I've loved in novels and on TV. And it's always comforting to be reminded that rich people have problems, too.

Lombardi

Lombardi, at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre
Gratuitous Violins rating: ** out of ****

Lombardi was the 11th pick in my fall 2010 Broadway draft and it was a bit of a longshot. Although I went through a sports fan phase as a teenager, it's been awhile since I've watched a football game.

But I figured, Vince Lombardi was an iconic figure in the 1960s, the period in American history that interests me the most. While I'm pretty well-versed in the era's politics and culture, I'm a few yards short of a first down when it comes to the sports highlights.

So I went into Eric Simonson's play hoping to learn what made Lombardi such a legendary football coach, to the point where the NFL named the Super Bowl trophy after him, and wanting to get a sense of his place in the midst of that tumultuous decade.

Well, there is a fascinating story here and a terrific, nuanced performance. It comes from Judith Light, as Lombardi's wife, Marie. She is sublime, absolutely the most interesting character onstage.

In the title role, Dan Lauria (best known as the father of Fred Savage on The Wonder Years) looks like the Green Bay Packers coach. But that's not enough for a winning performance, in my opinion. I felt like he got by too much on bluster and Vince Lombardi remained elusive.

The premise of the play also seemed contrived and not very dramatic - a writer from Look magazine has come to Green Bay in November 1965 to do a story on Lombardi, in the wake of an unflattering piece that ran in Esquire.

Keith Nobbs is appealing as Michael McCormick, youthful and eager to make a splash on his first big assignment. But he doesn't act like any reporter I know. He lives with the Lombardis during his week in Green Bay. He prefers to not take notes during interviews. And he's shocked when he realizes the type of story his editor wants. Wouldn't they have discussed that before he left New York City?

My biggest problem, though, is that most of what I learned about Vince Lombardi came secondhand, from conversations between McCormick and Marie, and when he interviews three Packer players - Paul Hornung (Bill Dawes), Jim Taylor (Chris Sullivan) and Dave Robinson (Robert Christopher Riley).

There certainly were moments when I got to see what made him tick. Lombardi talks about his frustration at being passed over for head coaching jobs, which he blames on the fact that he's Italian. In Green Bay, he makes it known that his team will only frequent restaurants that welcome black players. There's a passing reference to how he doesn't understand kids these days.

But I didn't get a sense from Lombardi of what made him unique as a coach, why his players revered him despite his toughness toward them, his relentless criticism. He just seemed loud, quick-tempered and stubborn and not very likable.

Marie Lombardi, on the other hand, was a different story.

The play offered a much deeper sense of her life: what it was like for her and their two children to live in the shadow of a famous husband and father, the difficult adjustment when they moved from New Jersey to Wisconsin. She tells McCormick that the three most important things to her husband are God, family and the Green Bay Packers - not necessarily in that order. Light handles all of this wonderfully, usually with a drink in Marie's hand.

Director Thomas Kail and set designer David Korins used the space in Circle in the Square well. I never felt like I was shortchanged in seeing the actors' faces in the round. The action takes place mostly in the Lombardi living room and on the practice field. (Ironically, the theatre is one of the few on Broadway that's not shaped like a football field.)

In the end, while there's one terrific performance and a few good moments, I was a bit bored at times. I'm not immune to having my heartstrings pulled by an inspirational sports story but Lombardi didn't quite do it for me. (Ok, I'll admit I did get a little choked up at the very end.)

It's possible I would have enjoyed the play more if I were more of a football fan. There was a cheer when the name of a New Jersey high school where Lombardi coached was mentioned. And there was an even bigger cheer at the curtain call when it was announced that the Packers had beaten the Vikings that afternoon.

Lombardi is produced in association with the National Football League and they've set up a nice display of Green Bay Packers memorabilia in the lobby, including signed footballs, newspaper articles and an old bench from Lambeau Field. I noticed a lot of people lingering afterward to get another look.

Clearly the play is attracting football fans to Broadway and they're enjoying themselves - and that's a good thing.