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.

Lowering the curtain on 2009

Here are a few final thoughts before I bid farewell to 2009, my third year of theatergoing:

• I'm sad that Finian's Rainbow is closing Jan. 17, despite some great reviews. It seems like on Broadway, they hardly give shows a chance anymore. Yes, the musical's story was kind of silly and a bit of a hodgepodge but in the end I was charmed, especially by the lovely Kate Baldwin and the spritely Christopher Fitzgerald. Also, Finian's Rainbow had one of the most attractive posters I've seen.
  

• Speaking of posters, not that it matters but A Steady Rain had one of the worst designs I've ever seen. How can you take two handsome men like Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman and make them almost painful to look at? I guess it was designed to symbolize their friendship, the merging of their lives. But it made them look like a two-headed Cyclops.
  

• Of my favorite lines in 2009 none was more shocking than one from Mary Stuart. I could not believe it when Janet McTeer as the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots taunted Queen Elizabeth I (Harriet Walter) with: "The throne of England is desecrated by a bastard." Not a wise thing to say to the woman who holds the keys to your jail and the warrant for your execution!

• Spoiler alert: I never realized that watching someone vomit on stage could be so entertaining but Hope Davis was superb at, er, "erupting" in God of Carnage. And watching the other three actors scurry around, trying to help her and cleaning up the mess, was hilarious. This is a scene that I knew was coming but it was executed in a way that still managed to surprise me.
  

• reasons to be pretty had an ending that made me laugh and cheer. Thomas Sadoski's character makes an obscene gesture after he's quit his job in the warehouse of a Costco-like chain. It was a beautiful moment and symbolized the way Sadoski's Greg became his own man. I hadn't planned on seeing this play but I ended up enjoying it so much, in large part due to Sadoski's engaging performance. Despite the ever-increasing appearance of celebrities on Broadway stages, it's most often the actors who aren't household names who end up making the biggest impression on me.
  

• On the downside, I've noticed more theatergoers arriving late and is it my imagination or have candy wrappers become more crinkly and noisy in the past year?
  

• Speaking of noise, I heard The Marvelous Wonderettes thumping above my head when I saw Love, Loss, and What I Wore at the Westside Theatre and I heard the rumbling of the subway trains beneath my feet during Waiting for Godot at Studio 54. Grrr.
  

• I'd been dreading 2009 long before January but thanks to my theatre-loving friends, it turned out to be a wonderful year, better than I could possibly have imagined. They made sure I had the best birthday ever. I am so grateful to them for that and for so much more.
  

• To everyone who read my blog, left a comment, followed me on Twitter, friended me on Facebook, sent me an e-mail, joined me for lunch, brunch dinner or a show, thank-you for the gift of your time and your friendship. Here's to a happy, healthy and adventure-filled 2010!
  

• Finally, out of everything I've read about theatre in 2009, this description by playwright Adam Szymkowicz of the plays that excite him resonated with me the most:
  
  "I want to have a good time. I want to laugh, I want to be engaged, I want to care. I like plays about things. I like crazy off the wall experiments and I like naturalism, too. Most importantly, I like narrative. If you're not telling me a story, I get bored and I hate your play. I don't want to hate your play. I want you to show me something new. I get excited by something I haven't seen before."

reasons to be pretty

Gratuitous Violins rating: ***1/2 out of ****

Usually when I read about a new show coming to Broadway I'm at least a little bit intrigued. But when I heard about reasons to be pretty, by Neil LaBute, I was not interested. I knew that some of his work, like In the Company of Men, included male characters who treated women badly and I didn't think I'd enjoy his plays.

But several of my fellow bloggers and theatergoing friends who saw reasons to be pretty enjoyed it and I respect their opinons. On Saturday evening, several of us were gathered at Angus McIndoe for a preshow dinner and I mentioned that I didn't yet have a ticket to see anything the next day.

So everyone at the table (including me) wrote down on a slip of paper what they thought I should see. We put all the slips in a glass and I picked out reasons to be pretty. (Turns out it got two votes.)

On Sunday morning, I stood in the play line and bought my first half-price ticket at the TKTS booth - fourth row orchestra on the aisle - for reasons to be pretty at the Lyceum Theatre. And I am so glad I did. What a terrific play, what a terrific cast. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed it. I'm so sorry it's closing on Sunday.

Now, this story of four young, working-class characters might not be everyone's taste. There's a lot of profanity. I know we've become desensitized to the f-word. But realistically, do people swear that much in everyday life? And I couldn't quite believe a very public argument that occurs in a very public place.

Still, LaBute has some very witty lines. And while the behavior he depicts is pretty reprehensible and extreme at times, it rings true to life. Characters in this play say things that are hurtful but they're things I've definitely heard people say. There's also a lot of humor and I laughed - a lot.

Reasons to be pretty is often described as a play about our obsession with physical beauty. And an offhand remark that Thomas Sadoski's Greg makes about the looks of his girlfriend Steph (played by Marin Ireland) sets the action off in an explosive fashion that's both brutal and hilarious.

But rather than a story about physical beauty, I think of it more as Greg's coming-of-age story. Sadoski, who received a Tony nomination along with Ireland, is so adorable and likable as Greg, who moves giant cartons around a Costco-like warehouse at night to earn a living. Ireland is wonderful as a spitfire of a woman who's maybe acting irrationally but clearly feels hurt.

Rounding out the cast are Steven Pasquale as Kent, Greg's rougher-edged coworker; and Piper Perabo, as Carly, Kent's wife, who works with the men as a security guard. In real life, I'm sure Pasquale is a doll but he's so good playing a reprehensible character. And Perabo's Carly is very sweet - the kind of woman who makes you think, what is she doing with him?

But what I loved the most about reasons to be pretty is the way Greg evolves throughout the play. He begins to see his future and the people around him in a different way. He becomes more confident. And watching him change, come into his own, is a thrilling experience. Sadoski is so good - he wins your heart and you truly feel for him and cheer him on.

So I'm woman enough to admit that I was wrong about Neil LaBute - he's written a young, sensitive male character who treats women very well. I hope we get a sequel because I'd like to know what happens to Greg. I'm betting he'll make an excellent husband and father.