STAGE WEST: "Other Desert Cities" at Cygnet Theatre

Alan Rust and Rosina Reynolds in "Other Desert Cities."                                       Karli Cadel Photography

            Having now seen Jon Robin Baitz’s “Other Desert Cities” twice – 12 years ago at the Old Globe and just Saturday night at Cygnet Theatre – I’m convinced that this is a tense drama that succeeds more because of its actors than its script.
            In Baitz’s 2011 play, daughter Brooke Wyeth’s yuletide visit to her parents’ home in Palm Springs in order to get their approval for her soon-to-be-published, damning family memoir is muddled, motivationally speaking. She’s a grown woman, albeit with a troubled past. So why does she really care about their approval? Her relationship with them, owing to political and more serious familial issues, has been long difficult; and does she show up with this red-hot memoir, one painting her parents as “monsters,” as strident mother Polly Wyeth refers to it, actually believing they won’t freak?
            More lacking in the narrative is the reason why Brooke was driven to substance abuse and to the brink of suicide, and is still obsessed on a daily basis she says, with the brother she lost. A brother who went down those roads himself, was complicit in a deadly act of political statement-making, and did commit suicide? She spends much of Act One aching out loud about how she and Henry were soulmates, emotionally inseparable. But it isn’t until the very end of “Other Desert Cities,” in a postscript scene, that we’re told how the two siblings were so very close.
            “Other Desert Cities” is also overstuffed with the presence of Brooke’s other brother, Trip, a “lowly” television producer who is annoying in the first act before playing a more relevant role in Act Two. (This despite or because of, depending on how you look at it, the old dependable pot-smoking scene.) The same could be said for the character of Polly’s sister Silda, lately of rehab, broke and living with Polly and her husband Lyman. Her role in the drama, which doesn’t feel very essential at the start, also becomes more key to the story later on.
            All this said, as with the Globe production of “Other Desert Cities” a dozen years ago that was elevated by the performances of Kandis Chappell as Polly and Robert Foxworth as Lyman, Cygnet’s has Rosina Reynolds and Alan Rust playing the Wyeths. For me, the reaction of the parents in Baitz’s play is even more important than that of the Brooke character, portrayed at Cygnet with an edgy resolve by Melanie Lora. The scenes without them have nowhere near the reverberations generated by those that do.
            Neither Trip (Geoffrey Ulysses Geissinger) nor Silda (Debra Wanger) is really that complicated, try as Baitz may have done to make them so. Everyone else in this Christmas-time confrontation-fest – for that’s what it is – is on the surface strong yet beneath that fraught with doubts and hurts from long past. Brooke’s memoir, “Love and Mercy,” seems guaranteed to bubble everything to and over the surface.
            Much is made of the political difference between the Ronny and Nancy-loving parents’ and everyone else, but these references smack of contrivance. The interpersonal crises of “Other Desert Cities” are far deeper.
            As always, Reynolds commands the stage like few actors in town. She could speak the phone book (if we still had phone books) with eloquence and clarity, but more than that she never fails to create a character, and Polly Wyeth is the fulcrum of “Other Desert Cities.” Strong support from Rust adds to the perception and the understanding that Brooke’s parents may have been intoxicated by the early-2000s glamour and selfishness of the GOP upper crust but they still love their “lib” daughter, even as they battle with her like only family members can.
            The Brooke and Polly characters as written often speak in oratory in “Other Desert Cities.” Lyman and Trip and Silda less so. There are times when these people don’t sound real. Yet we do give a damn about what happens in this Palm Springs living room, a marvel of mid-century modern décor designed by Andrew Hull, complete with panoramic picture-window view of the San Jacintos.
             The Wyeths, mired in profound, roiling differences and complications that will only worsen as “Other Desert Cities” proceeds, will be forced to learn on all sides. Embraces are few. Mostly their salvos come from neutral corners of that cozy living room.
            Cygnet’s Sean Murray directs with the actor’s instinct with which he consistently directs. Voluble as it can be, “Other Desert Cities” maintains its momentum toward a surprising ending. Lora’s tortured but principled Brooke may not be a very sympathetic character for most of the going, but when her world gets rocked … well, find out for yourself.
            Then drive out to Palm Springs, where the San Jacintos and a more serene atmosphere await.
            “Other Desert Cities” runs through March 2 at Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.