The Wyeth family returns for a phenomenal revival of Other Desert Cities, with standout performances, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Broadway debut. The politics and ideological clashes hit even harder than when the play premiered 15 years ago.
It’s Christmas Eve, 2004, as Polly (Louis-Dreyfus) and Lyman (Ed Harris) welcome their daughter, Brooke (Lily Rabe), a liberal East Coast writer, and their younger son, Trip (Joe Keery), a reality TV producer, to their Palm Springs home. Brooke brings her soon-to-be-published memoir about the family’s eldest child, Henry, whose apparent suicide followed his role in a deadly bombing. Despite skewering her parents in the book (“old-guard Republicans in Hollywood, that odd and very particular subset”), Brooke still seeks their blessing.
Tensions eventually reach every corner of the Wyeths’ affluent, desert-life living room.
Before the reckoning comes the roast
The mood is anything but somber in Act I. Louis-Dreyfus sinks her teeth into Polly, leaving no politically incorrect laugh unseized. After learning her daughter’s marriage is over, Polly quickly suggests a makeover: “You are never going to meet anyone if you continue to dress like a refugee from a library in Kabul.”
Allison Janney as Silda, Polly’s sister fresh out of rehab and something of a fourth child to her, adds to the comedic goldmine: “I’m not allowed to drink, nobody said anything about drugs!”
Director John Benjamin Hickey has a firm grip on Jon Robin Baitz’s play, a 2012 Pulitzer finalist, as it takes a darker turn in Act II. Rabe, who appeared this summer in The Winter’s Tale, brings a contemporary, raw delivery and a physical evolution as she stands up to her mother to defend her book, even as Polly targets her historically troubled mental health.
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.
It wants better content.
Is ‘Other Desert Cities’ worth seeing?
With Julia Louis-Dreyfus commanding a starry ensemble, the Broadway revival of Other Desert Cities turns a Palm Springs Christmas into a gripping fight over grief, loyalty, and the secrets families keep to survive.
- Hudson Theatre, 141 West 44th Street, New York City
- Notable performers: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Lily Rabe, Joe Keery
- Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission
- Performances through January 17, 2027
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