Family Secrets Breed Suspense At Other Desert Cities

By Melody Udell in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 24, 2013 4:00PM

The Wyeth family in Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities:Tracy Michelle Arnold (Brooke Wyeth), Chelcie Ross (Lyman Wyeth), John Hoogenakker (Trip Wyeth) and Deanna Dunagan (Polly Wyeth). Photo courtesy Goodman Theatre.

It’s Christmastime during the Goodman Theatre’s searing production of Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities, but it’s not the setting that gives it away. Sure, there’s a bone-dry Christmas tree and a couple of Pottery Barn-esque tabletop reindeer in the carefully edited living room of the Wyeth family, but at their swanky Palm Springs abode, Christmas Eve is punctuated with mid-morning tennis matches, buffet meals at the country club and — of course — a slowly opening vault of family drama. Now’s that’s a family Christmas we can relate to.

For some, the Wyeths will be a familiar bunch. The patriarch, Lyman, is an Old Hollywood ex-actor whose daily life now consists of hosting fundraisers and attending dinners with fellow stalwart members of the Republican party. With his equally devoted wife, Polly, at his side, the two have been gliding through their golden years using their ever-increasing social mobility to shift the focus from their kids — Trip, the derisive baby of the family with the disappointing TV career; Brooke, a brilliant but emotionally unstable writer living in self-imposed austerity on Long Island; and lastly, Henry, whose involvement in an anti-Vietnam attack drove him to suicide nearly 30 years ago, but whose presence is still very much felt within the Wyeth family.

Just 10 minutes into the show, and it’s clear there won’t be any presents or pie at this holiday get-together. Brooke, somewhat fresh from a mental hospital and still living in the shadow of her six-year bout with depression, has brought the manuscript for her latest book, a no-holds-barred family memoir that doesn’t stop short of blaming Lyman and Polly for Henry’s death. Lyman begs her to shelve the book until after he’s dead. Polly lashes out at her madcap, live-in sister Silda, a barely coping alcoholic who clearly helped Brooke fill in the blanks with her manuscript. But even wise-cracking, embittered Silda doesn’t know the whole truth.

Director Henry Wishcamper ensures the show is adequately paced — despite the fact that the plot barely strays from the Wyeth’s tension-filled living room (flawlessly designed by Thomas Lynch). Wishcamper keeps the dialogue brisk but biting, each scene feels fresh. But the true strength of Other Desert Cities is the cast. Tracy Michelle Arnold’s Brooke possesses the sort of unhinged fragility that only comes from deep trauma — and she’s almost too self-aware of that fact. As the parents, Deanna Dunagan and Chelcie Ross provide the steam the show runs on; both have an on-stage presence that radiates throughout the theater and onto State Street. And Linda Kimbrough as Silda and Jon Hoogenakker as Trip give some much-needed comedic grease to the Wyeth family machine. Both are quick with the one-liners while their own pain and bitterness is written all over their faces.

Guarding long-held family secrets is certainly not a new plot device, especially in this consumption-soaked California desert town of the one percent. But at the Goodman, the secrets spilled onstage make clear the one thing the Wyeths knew all along — eventually, the truth does indeed come out. And you most likely won’t be ready for it.