Other Desert Cities Broadway Reviews

So I cannot say if it’s “worth” it to spend so much to see Louis-Dreyfus, but it is still grand to find her on Broadway. Her nervy charisma transfers nicely to the theater, where we can see her stumbles — her Polly is endearingly unsure about...

So I cannot say if it’s “worth” it to spend so much to see Louis-Dreyfus, but it is still grand to find her on Broadway. Her nervy charisma transfers nicely to the theater, where we can see her stumbles — her Polly is endearingly unsure about how to take her own husband’s arm — and her steely recoveries. Louis-Dreyfus makes it clear how people can simultaneously love and fear Polly. Her backbone will go straight and her lips will cut left and she will chop whoever’s standing in front of her into kindling. She is tiptop at that kind of put-down, and we’ve seen her do it a hundred times onscreen. What feels like new magic is how in the next moment she can rivet the audience by suddenly seeming tiny and unsteady again. That is a trick that will surely serve her well in other roles, in other plays.

Louis-Dreyfus does a credible job; her theatrical training, though long in the past, is self-evident. But most of the memorable moments in the production belong to other cast members: The single most memorable moment for me is Ed Harris as the patria...

Louis-Dreyfus does a credible job; her theatrical training, though long in the past, is self-evident. But most of the memorable moments in the production belong to other cast members: The single most memorable moment for me is Ed Harris as the patriarch Lyman Wyeth re-creating how he used to die in the movies. There are riveting monologues by both Rabe and Stranger Things’ Joe Keery, who is also making his Broadway debut, in the role of the son Trip.

Rabe doesn’t hesitate to make Brooke snotty, entitled, and infuriating: Is she really so naive that she thought this book, which apparently blames her parents for Henry’s drug use and eventual demise, and accuses their high-placed republican frie...

Rabe doesn’t hesitate to make Brooke snotty, entitled, and infuriating: Is she really so naive that she thought this book, which apparently blames her parents for Henry’s drug use and eventual demise, and accuses their high-placed republican friends of who knows what, wouldn’t destroy Polly and Lyman? When Harris looks at her, registering his disappointment—“I only had a little bit of my heart left intact after we lost Henry, and what’s left is breaking”—your heart will break too.

But Other Desert Cities also features sympathetic, complex characters who largely defy our expectations, with the result that it’s consistently engrossing nonetheless. There’s little point in comparing this cast to the off-Broadway and Broadway o...

But Other Desert Cities also features sympathetic, complex characters who largely defy our expectations, with the result that it’s consistently engrossing nonetheless. There’s little point in comparing this cast to the off-Broadway and Broadway originals, who were superb, except that these players, under Hickey’s too relaxed direction, don’t quite bring the same edge. Dreyfus seems a bit miscast, easily scoring big laughs with her expert comic delivery but not successfully conveying her character’s rancorous nature. The same could be said of Janney, also very amusing but not fully convincing as someone supposedly ravaged by the effects of alcoholism. Harris, adorned with a distracting if appropriate blond wig, plays his role perfectly in mostly understated fashion with the exception of a mock death scene that brings down the house. The real acting linchpins of the production are Keery, making an outstanding Broadway debut with his sharp turn as the acerbic Trip and scoring a triumph with his second act monologue, and Rabe, deeply affecting as the daughter who undergoes the play’s most seismic shift. The two younger performers may not be at the top of the billing, but they prove the evening’s MVPs.

Of the production’s two genuine cast standouts, one is unsurprising: stage veteran Lily Rabe is both heartbreaking and appropriately annoying as Brooke, a high-intensity individual struggling with deep wells of pain. Rabe is not exactly restrained ...

Of the production’s two genuine cast standouts, one is unsurprising: stage veteran Lily Rabe is both heartbreaking and appropriately annoying as Brooke, a high-intensity individual struggling with deep wells of pain. Rabe is not exactly restrained here, but her severity feels truthful. A greater surprise is Joe Keery, of Stranger Things fame, a natural stage presence who carefully reveals the confusion and torment lurking under Trip’s surface aloofness.

The men fare better. Harris is superb as Lyman, a craggily handsome Clint Eastwood type who tends toward the laconic—Polly is happy to do most of the talking—but who, when he does speak, does so with decency and feeling; Keely keeps a smooth bala...

The men fare better. Harris is superb as Lyman, a craggily handsome Clint Eastwood type who tends toward the laconic—Polly is happy to do most of the talking—but who, when he does speak, does so with decency and feeling; Keely keeps a smooth balance on a precarious fence between Trip’s parents on one side and his sister and aunt on the other. And both men nail their big comic moments: Harris in an extended fake death, Keely in pouring out confessions while rolling a joint.

“Other Desert Cities” is a resounding piece of theater, not simply because of the subject matter but because of the performances. The entire cast works as a seamless ensemble, switching from quippy wit, including Polly’s assertion that sarcasm ...

“Other Desert Cities” is a resounding piece of theater, not simply because of the subject matter but because of the performances. The entire cast works as a seamless ensemble, switching from quippy wit, including Polly’s assertion that sarcasm is “only for teenagers and homosexuals,” to heartbreaking and volatile outbursts rife with the pain of a family standing on a foundation of lies and hypocrisy.

Alas, despite Baitz’s well-made play and an A-list cast, this revival is under-directed by John Benjamin Hickey, which leaves the actors feeling unmoored. Though Other Desert Cities has interesting points to make about family dysfunction, ethical o...

Alas, despite Baitz’s well-made play and an A-list cast, this revival is under-directed by John Benjamin Hickey, which leaves the actors feeling unmoored. Though Other Desert Cities has interesting points to make about family dysfunction, ethical obligations, and political complicity, particularly in the Republican party, the piece’s relevancy is overshadowed by the awkward production. The entire Wyeth family are complex and morally gray, slippery and in some cases monstrous, and this cast doesn’t fully capture their shifting tides. As an ensemble, they struggle to work together and to elevate each other’s performances.

The best acting is done by Stranger Things star Keery, who credibly embodies a young man whose privilege and access have certainly made him cynical, but not yet entirely indecent. He is simply the spoiled, listless baby of a family whom he is too you...

The best acting is done by Stranger Things star Keery, who credibly embodies a young man whose privilege and access have certainly made him cynical, but not yet entirely indecent. He is simply the spoiled, listless baby of a family whom he is too young to have known at their mightiest, before the postlapsarian retreat to the desert, buried child in tow. Keery nails the way that guys of a certain stripe tend to pivot between snark and sensitivity, punctuating real feelings with a joke or a nihilistic provocation. He understands the intended tone of Baitz’s rickety dynasty, the clan’s haughty but not entirely confident put-on that through even this, they — like a noble idea of old America itself — shall endure.

Where Other Desert Cities really thrives is in its moments of levity. The show, at its core, is comment on how one’s mental health struggles impact those around them. But just when things are getting a bit too heavy for the audience, Allison Janney...

Where Other Desert Cities really thrives is in its moments of levity. The show, at its core, is comment on how one’s mental health struggles impact those around them. But just when things are getting a bit too heavy for the audience, Allison Janney enters the chat. Playing Polly’s sister Silda, a recovering alcoholic, The West Wing star does what she does best: brings the laughs. And director John Benjamin Hickey, who won a 2011 Tony Award for his role as Felix Turner in The Normal Heart, has her lean into physical comedy. (One particularly standout moment has Janney smelling the alcohol residue left in a glass as she wishes to live in that scent.)

After setting the stage with a punchline-heavy first act, the tone shifts after the intermission to a more serious drama where Rabe’s Brooke confronts her parents and presses them to open up after years of shutting down any difficult subject matter...

After setting the stage with a punchline-heavy first act, the tone shifts after the intermission to a more serious drama where Rabe’s Brooke confronts her parents and presses them to open up after years of shutting down any difficult subject matter. When the gate is open, there’s no turning back. And Louis-Dreyfus steps up to the moment in a memorable series of speeches where she finally drops the carefully manicured, Missoni-inspired armor she’s been wearing for years (costumes by Tom Broecker) to reveal a rawer, appealingly vulnerable woman underneath.

At the center of it all is Louis-Dreyfus, whose Polly is as entertaining as she is difficult to love. As she’s demonstrated in films like Enough Said, You Hurt My Feelings and Tuesday, Louis-Dreyfus has long been capable of much more than comedy...

At the center of it all is Louis-Dreyfus, whose Polly is as entertaining as she is difficult to love. As she’s demonstrated in films like Enough Said, You Hurt My Feelings and Tuesday, Louis-Dreyfus has long been capable of much more than comedy. Here, she puts those dramatic instincts to good use, allowing glimpses of Polly’s vulnerability to emerge even as the character fights to keep her emotions in check. She can squeeze a laugh from seemingly any line, but it’s in the play’s second act, when long-buried truths finally come to light, that her performance becomes truly extraordinary. As Polly’s carefully maintained composure begins to fracture, Louis-Dreyfus allows us to see the grief and fear she’s spent years suppressing beneath a polished mask of privilege and perfection.

Still, there’s no doubt that we want to follow this cast wherever it asks us to go, even when that’s a pretty big ask. The cast itself can occasionally seem tentative, particularly Dreyfus during the heavy second act. At a few points during the p...

Still, there’s no doubt that we want to follow this cast wherever it asks us to go, even when that’s a pretty big ask. The cast itself can occasionally seem tentative, particularly Dreyfus during the heavy second act. At a few points during the play an otherwise winning Harris, at the reviewed performance, still seemed to be finding his way through the character and the script. Fortunately we’re all more than willing to cut him some slack after a wonderful scene in the first act in which his former-actor character recreates an old B-movie death scene that suggest Harris has played more than a few of these himself.

Louis-Dreyfus is impeccable, her turns to iciness genuinely chilling as a study of propriety in action; the venom she struggles to hold back seeping through her teeth. (She also looks great in Tom Broecker’s spot-on costumes, and in the first lady ...

Louis-Dreyfus is impeccable, her turns to iciness genuinely chilling as a study of propriety in action; the venom she struggles to hold back seeping through her teeth. (She also looks great in Tom Broecker’s spot-on costumes, and in the first lady bob which hair-and-wig designer Robert Pickens gives her.) With his born star-gravitas and voice, Harris is the perfect patrician, which makes the cracks in his steeliness all the more heartbreaking. And Keery earns this season’s Alden Ehrenreich award for best revelation who should never leave the stage.

Despite the considerable talent onstage, the shaky A-list stars never quite congeal as an ensemble. What should be a ferocious cage match instead feels like a bowling tournament with the bumpers up: Yes, everyone is trying their damnedest, but the fi...

Despite the considerable talent onstage, the shaky A-list stars never quite congeal as an ensemble. What should be a ferocious cage match instead feels like a bowling tournament with the bumpers up: Yes, everyone is trying their damnedest, but the fireworks sputter out before they can ever really ignite. Judging by the number of flubbed lines at a recent performance, perhaps director John Benjamin Hickey didn’t have enough time to work with his cast before the training wheels came off. Louis-Dreyfus, too, goes for the jugular as Polly, who can kneecap her prey with even the most tossed-off zingers. (“You are never going to meet anyone if you continue to dress like a refugee from a library in Kabul,” she purrs disdainfully at Brooke.) Few actors can deliver a daggered punchline with more piquancy than Louis-Dreyfus, who imbues the character with a wounded obstinance and spite that makes Polly all the more fascinating.

While Louis-Dreyfus regales the audience at the Hudson Theatre, Harris gives a most self-effacing performance. Except for a wonderful cameo where he delivers his signature death scene, one he honed decades ago in countless movie Westerns, Harris’ L...

While Louis-Dreyfus regales the audience at the Hudson Theatre, Harris gives a most self-effacing performance. Except for a wonderful cameo where he delivers his signature death scene, one he honed decades ago in countless movie Westerns, Harris’ Lyman Wyeth is the husband who’s missing in action. We don’t exactly miss him, either. Besides Louis-Dreyfus, there is Janney’s boisterous and wise-cracking Silda, who resembles Edward Albee’s Claire in “A Delicate Balance,” a role Elaine Stritch played to perfection in that play’s last Broadway revival. Here, Janney keeps that Ladies Who Lunch torch burning brightly.

But the cast, while stacked, doesn’t have the chemistry needed to sustain this family drama. Scott Pask’s stunning set design perfectly captures the wealth of the Wyeth family. The sprawling living room interior of their California desert home on...

But the cast, while stacked, doesn’t have the chemistry needed to sustain this family drama. Scott Pask’s stunning set design perfectly captures the wealth of the Wyeth family. The sprawling living room interior of their California desert home only draws more attention when the wood-burning fireplace on the right-hand side of the stage is lit about halfway through the first act. The fire flickers but never wavers, providing a steady constant as logs are added and cigarettes tersely tossed into it over the course of the drama. Real or not, it ultimately has more spark than the actors around it.

The casting, especially Louis-Dreyfus, makes this a hot ticket, and fans encountering the play for the first time may find it gripping. But a revival needs more than an impressive guest list, and this production never makes a convincing case that “...

The casting, especially Louis-Dreyfus, makes this a hot ticket, and fans encountering the play for the first time may find it gripping. But a revival needs more than an impressive guest list, and this production never makes a convincing case that “Other Desert Cities” needed another trip to Broadway.

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. Each actor has their moment...

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. Each actor has their moments, most are fine and one is excellent. Not for a second, however, does anybody believe that the Wyeths are a real family or something other than an impressive assemblage of celebrities.

Other Desert Cities, at least in this constellation of performances, doesn’t offer a coherent point of view on the Wyeths’ solipsistic privilege. Nor, for all the political window-dressing, do the family members’ divergent politics ultimately i...

Other Desert Cities, at least in this constellation of performances, doesn’t offer a coherent point of view on the Wyeths’ solipsistic privilege. Nor, for all the political window-dressing, do the family members’ divergent politics ultimately impact their behavior all that much: Liberal parents might be equally horrified at the idea of their daughter publishing a damaging book. “Being depressed makes you banal,” Trip tells Brooke in one of the play’s many moments of familial flagellation. It’s among the playwright’s cleverer ruses that he blames his characters for Other Desert Cities’s own stifling aridity.

As the patriarch, Harris crafts a gorgeous amalgam of retired movie star, grieving father, overprotective girl dad, and slick-haired man with a tan, making unpredictable pivots like a lion roaming his natural habitat. Still, this production belongs t...

As the patriarch, Harris crafts a gorgeous amalgam of retired movie star, grieving father, overprotective girl dad, and slick-haired man with a tan, making unpredictable pivots like a lion roaming his natural habitat. Still, this production belongs to Polly. Funny, formidable, and fiercely human, Louis-Dreyfus unfurls a mother whose love can be as devastating as the secrets she protects. An absolute beast of a production, Other Desert Cities argues that some family stories demand to be told.

Everything I’m laying at Baitz’s door here belongs not just to Other Desert Cities but to a whole genre of modern American playwriting, one that lets its audiences feel like they’ve grappled with something serious while really encouraging their...

Everything I’m laying at Baitz’s door here belongs not just to Other Desert Cities but to a whole genre of modern American playwriting, one that lets its audiences feel like they’ve grappled with something serious while really encouraging their brains to relax into classic melodrama. The pleasures of such plays aren’t holistic — they come in flashes, like, for instance, a withering showpiece of a speech that Keery delivers with a touch of crazy-eye while rolling a joint, or every time Allison Janney speaks.

It’s a first-rate production, in many ways better than the original. But a revisit of Other Desert Cities, even one as beautifully rendered as this, reveals the play’s limitations. Not even Rabe can fully sell her character’s overwritten monolo...

It’s a first-rate production, in many ways better than the original. But a revisit of Other Desert Cities, even one as beautifully rendered as this, reveals the play’s limitations. Not even Rabe can fully sell her character’s overwritten monologues as sparkling comedy flattens into increasingly unpalatable melodrama. The big reveals come, but don’t feel nearly as shocking as they’re meant to. Then Baitz ties up loose ends with cheap sentiment and a slapdash epilogue.

By the play’s end, Mr. Baitz has with remarkable dexterity transformed what might at first have seemed a formulaic if foolproof comedy into something more closely resembling tragedy. He has long been the rare American playwright unafraid to follow ...

By the play’s end, Mr. Baitz has with remarkable dexterity transformed what might at first have seemed a formulaic if foolproof comedy into something more closely resembling tragedy. He has long been the rare American playwright unafraid to follow in the path of Arthur Miller, the foremost dramatic moralist the country has produced. But here, even as he makes sport of his characters’ foibles and blinkered worldviews, he views them with a compassion that feels free of judgment, and touched with grace.

Louis-Dreyfus demurs when it comes to firing off the heavy artillery in the way I recall Stockard Channing doing in this role. There has been a generational shift. Louis-Dreyfus is not that far from Gen X herself and that makes her more nuanced Polly...

Louis-Dreyfus demurs when it comes to firing off the heavy artillery in the way I recall Stockard Channing doing in this role. There has been a generational shift. Louis-Dreyfus is not that far from Gen X herself and that makes her more nuanced Polly all the more interesting if you see this play, as I do, as a meditation on what makes us all the way we are and causes the family fights we all have. Baitz is, I think, saying that parental and generational pressures fight within us like opposite forces in the Iraqi, or Californian, desert, sometimes in a lifelong truce, but usually looking for the other party’s weapons of mass destruction.