Family in ‘Other Desert Cities’ at war decades after tragedy

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — In the well-appointed living room in the Palm Springs home of former Ambassador, Republican party chairman and one-time actor Lyman Wyeth (Robert Foxworth) and his loyal one-time actress wife Polly (Kandis Chappell), a large Christmas tree stands against the picture window.  From a bottom branch, facing the living room’s interior, but not seen from the outside, hangs a six-pointed star, which might be taken for an ordinary decoration. The Star of David is the Wyeths’ concession to Polly’s childhood upbringing as a Jew–an upbringing that Polly acknowledges, even brings up to her mixed religious family,  but one which her house-guest sister, Slida Grauman (Robin Pearson Rose), a recovering alcoholic, nevertheless feels Polly has all but abandoned in her desire to “pass” as one of the wealthy, gentile and Republican crowd.

After recovering from a severe bout with clinical depression, their novelist daughter Brooke (Dana Green) has recently completed writing a second book.  Only the manuscript is not a novel, it is a memoir about her radicalized, anti-Vietnam War, drug-abusing, free-loving, brother Henry, who in misguided fervor one night bombed a military recruiting station, not realizing that a cleaning crew was inside.  Distraught over the death he caused, according to Brooke’s account, Henry went to their parents, seeking help, but concerned about their image among their Republican friends (who even included Ron and Nancy Reagan), his parents sent Henry away.  Because of his abandonment by his parents, she wrote, he then killed himself, whereupon she had plunged into a deep, deep depression from which it was thought she would never recover.

As the Old Globe production of Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz gets underway, Brooke has come to spend the Christmas holidays with her parents as has her younger brother Trip (Andy Bean).  She is there to tell them about the forthcoming book, and if possible, to get their blessing for the enterprise.   Her mother will have none of it.  The book should never be published, she says. The father agrees.  Clearly it is a violation of the trust and loyalty family members must have for each other.  Had she been quoting Torah, Polly might also have cited the Fifth Commandment: Honor Thy Mother and Thy Father.

Brooke, on the other hand, believes that as a writer, she has an obligation to the memory of her brother Henry, as well as to her own mental health, to set the record straight, even if re-publicizing the family shonda destroys her parents’ reputations.  Urging her on is her Aunt Slida, who for most of the play serves as the comic relief.  Also an actress long past her prime, she had harbored such deep resentments against her sister Polly that behind Polly’s back, she had filled Brooke in on some of the details of  Henry’s demise which had occurred some 30 years before, during Brooke’s childhood.

More on the fence in this agitated family debate is brother Trip, who explains one meaning of the title of the play.  On a freeway, there is an overhead sign indicating the way to “Palm Springs and Other Desert Cities.”  A resident of Los Angeles, Trip produces a  combination TV game and courtroom show– a cross between “Judge Judy” and “Let’s Make a Deal”–  in which a judge deals with often humorous misdemeanors.  The atmosphere at his parents’ Palm Springs home, in contrast, is so intense, he often wants to keep driving to those “other desert cities.”  In a program note, director Richard Seer tells of another meaning.  As the family controversy over a war fought 30 years before rages inside a Palm Springs living room, other wars– in other desert cities in Iraq and Afghanistan– are once again dividing the nation.

As the play works its way to an unexpected conclusion, we are challenged to ask ourselves the question: on which side does right reside?  Should Brooke tell all, even though it might break her family’s hearts?  Does obedience to “the truth” require the family buckle to Brooke’s demands,  and let the real story be known, even though it might paint them as heartless, right-wing demagogues?   In Brooke’s view, if only her parents had sympathized with Henry’s arguments against the war, instead of continuing to personify what Henry believed was wrong with the country, they might have averted the whole recruiting-office tragedy.  But no, she concluded bitterly, it was more important for her parents to “pass” as part of the well-heeled Republican crowd who made Palm Springs a home for the politically powerful and the famous.

There was no question which side the majority of the young Old Globe audience favored on the opening Thursday night, May 2, as the family battle built to its climax on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage. Judging by those lines that got the applause, it was clearly a liberal crowd that had little use for the parents’ seemingly faded Republican values. However, others in the audience, who held as tightly onto their applause as onto their programs, clearly believed that Brooke was a transgressor, not only against the sanctity of the family, but, also in her support of Henry, against the sacred principles of  the United States of America.

For the most part, this play is a  daughter-mother battle, in which actresses Dana Green and Kandis Chappell made convincing combatants.  The father and the aunt were strongly played by Robert Foxworth and Robin Pearson Rose, although Foxworth’s lines sometimes sounded mumbled.  It was hard to tell whether the brother seemed nervous because of the explosiveness of the family situation on stage, or because actor Andy Bean had opening night jitters.

Regardless, the play was a success; the audience was pleased by how the debate over “washing the family linen in public” turned out; and the Old Globe, once again, has a winning, thought-provoking production.  Other Desert Cities  continues through June 2.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com