We all have families. Most families have issues, and these issues often come to a head during family gatherings — thus, the enduring popularity of family dramedies that take place during the holidays.
Jon Robin Baitz’s “Other Desert Cities,” currently playing at ACT Theatre, takes the holiday family dramedy to a new level. Articulate, witty and barbed dialogue paints a realistic picture of the mathematical complexity of family dynamics further fueled by political animosities.
It is Christmas Eve 2004, and the Iraq War is in full swing in spite of the failure to locate WMDs. Recovering suicidal depressive, author and political liberal Brooke Wyeth (Marya Sea Kaminski) visits the elegant Palms Springs home of her conservative Republican parents, Polly (the fabulous Pamela Reed) and Lyman (Kevin Tighe).
Sound designer Brendan Patrick Hogan’s Rat Pack holiday music complements Robert Dahlstrom’s elegant Palm Springs set, transporting us to Polly and Lyman’s world, seemingly frozen in the 1960s.
After a long absence from both family and writing, Brooke has written a memoir that threatens to unravel her parents’ carefully structured life as pillars of the old-guard GOP. In the memoir, Brooke blames her parents for the suicide of an idolized older brother, a member of the radical underground implicated for a 1970s bombing. The parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq wars are implicit.
Too young to be personally affected by the suicide, youngest brother Trip (Aaron Blakely) brings some degree of impartiality to the proceedings; Baitz exploits his character to provide explanatory narrative in the midst of the brewing war of emotions.
As barely recovering alcoholic Aunt Silda, Lori Larsen gets to quote some of the best comic lines. Unlike most family dramedy, where comedy is the ultimate goal, Baitz employs comedy to skillfully lure the audience into the eye of the family storm.
Director Victor Pappas directs this excellent cast with a sure hand; all of the actors bring polish and depth to their characters. Stage and screen veteran Kevin Tighe’s portrays charismatic actor-turned-politician Lyman Wyeth as a charming dinosaur, unable to keep up with the changing world of political and personal values. Blakely’s Trip pays a price for the intensity he invests in appearing easygoing. Larsen’s Silda reminds us that comedy is often a twin to pain.
Wonderful as all of the performers are, the true focus of the play is the conflict between Polly and Brooke. Kaminski delivers an excellent portrayal of Brooke as a woman with the bland calm of the antidepressant drug user masking the roiling emotions beneath. Broadway, movie and TV star Pamela Reed (“Parks and Recreation”), elegantly dressed and perfectly coiffed by Frances Kenny in a manner reminiscent of Pat Nixon, commands the stage as the controlling, self-controlled Polly.
But appearances can be deceiving. Act 2 reveals that Polly, Lyman and Silda are not all they appear and that, differences aside, we share a common humanity.
“Other Desert Cities” plays at ACT Theatre (700 Union St.) through June 30. For more information, go to www.acttheatre.org.
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