Other Desert Cities

 This play is about a family and takes place Christmas 2004 in the Wyeth home, Palm Springs, California.  The parents, Polly and Lyman are well known in the GOP circles in the desert community.  Robert was an actor and later both became active in politics.  Polly’s best girlfriends were Sylvia Bloomingdale and Nancy Reagan to give you a sense of their social standing.  

Their daughter Brooke is a writer back East and their youngest son, Trip, is a TV director in LA.  What is missing is their son, Henry who had gotten involved with the wrong people.  He set off a bomb, I think at a Veteran’s Center and the janitor was killed.  Henry disappears and is a wanted man.  As a result of the tragedy and involvement of their son, Polly and Lyman seemingly escape to a home in Palm Springs.

Brooke feels Henry is not only her brother, but her best friend.  As a result of the event and losing her brother, she suffers a breakdown and was hospitalized for almost a year.  For 6 years afterwards, she works on a book about her brother and at Christmas, tells her family about the book.  The rest of the play is about the debate of whether or not she should publish it.  The book portrays Henry as misunderstood and their parents as rigid and uncaring.  She blames them for the loss of Henry.  Polly and Lyman are hurt about the perspective she is taking in the book and that she doesn’t know everything.  The emotions are high and the words hurt.  Polly and Lyman feel she could publish the book after they are gone but Brooke feels she would be betraying herself and Henry if she waited.

I was on the side of the parents and I didn’t feel the actress portraying Brooke was very good.  The start of the play seemed stilted and could be performed in a community theatre.  But as the play progressed, it got better.

Later, we discover that Polly and Lyman had taken Henry across the border to Canada, knowing they could not see their son again.  Brooke fell apart, relief that her brother is alive, sorry that he is probably lost to them and anger that her book is incomplete of all the facts.  From our seats we could see the tears and slobbering of solid, heartfelt crying.

The final scene is 6 years later as Brooke reads her book at a Bookstore in Seattle.  She talks about the death of her father, thankful that she was at his bedside.  She moves in with her Aunt in the house next door of the Palm Desert home.  She reminisces of sitting at the pool with her mother for the remainder of her days. So she did hold off on the book and rewrites portions of it to include the love she has for her parents and the last words she utters in the play is the wonderment of “How can I find Henry…?”

I would probably see it again.  Max would, definitely.  He gave them a standing ovation, and then I joined him.  He said the play was powerful.