“Every family is tormented by its weakest member.” Indeed. The creator of ABC’s “Brothers and Sisters” apparently has a wealth of family drama stories up his sleeve – Jon Robin Baitz‘s new Broadway play Other Desert Cities just opened on Broadway, starring theater and TV heavyweights Stockard Channing, Judith Light, Rachel Griffiths and Stacy Keach.
Rachel Griffiths
Directed by Joe Mantello (The Normal Heart), this new play explores a grown-up family’s relationships with each other as they reunite in Palm Springs, CA for Christmas. Secrets are kept, reveals are made, and relationships are stretched as thin as the members of this high-profile family attempt to keep a semblance of decorum in the face of tragedy.
Rachel Griffiths and Thomas Sadoski
Other Desert Cities is all about discovery – discovery of truth, of secrets and lies, and of what sacrifices must be made to keep up appearances. Stockard Channing (Grease, The West Wing) and Stacy Keach (Titus, Frost/Nixon) play an aging Republican couple whose friends include the Reagans, Bushes, and other right-wing elite. Their children, Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under, Brothers and Sisters) and Thomas Sadoski (reasons to be pretty) are successful in their own right, as an author and TV producer, respectively, but the family’s bond is held in check by a secret from their past that is finally coming to light on a fateful Christmas Eve. Judith Light (Who’s the Boss, Ugly Betty) plays Channing’s sister, the left-wing foil that provides levity and her own bag of secrets.
Rachel Griffiths and Stacy Keach
As with any good play involving the uncovering of secrets, I would be remiss to give any of them away, however I will say that you’re kept on the edge of your seat at each new development. I can’t express enough how exciting it is to see theater that isn’t dependent on fancy sets, the Beatles’ song catalog, or other superfluous accoutrements; this is storytelling at its finest, and rarely does the 2.5 hour show lose your attention.
Judith Light and Stockard Channing
Other Desert Cities is all about relationships between families, and what it means to honor or betray those relationships. The best play I’ve seen so far this season, I highly recommend it for a night of fast quips, deep insight onto the responsibilities of parenthood, and just how long things can stay under the rug. Maybe just don’t go see it with your parents.
Other Desert Cities is currently being presented by Lincoln Center Theater, playing at the Booth Theater at 302 45th St in New York City.
