“Other Desert Cities” at the Hudson Theatre (Photo: Emilio Madrid)

The fall season’s starriest revival, Other Desert Cities, has now opened at the Hudson Theatre, Broadway’s most desired celebrity hub. Since being re-christened as a Broadway house in 2017, it’s the go-to home for the A-List when they tread the boards, probably due to its lavish refurbishment and the elegant touches (the bars have real glassware!) that only Ambassador Theatre Group can provide.

For this glitzy revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s 2011 play, the marquee names are Ed Harris, Allison Janney, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in her Broadway debut. These three titans need no introduction and are contributing to the production’s steep ticket prices and sold-out crowds. Between them, Janney and Louis-Dreyfus have nineteen Emmys. Harris made his Broadway debut 40 years ago and Janney’s not far behind at 30. Baitz’s play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 and nominated for a Tony the same year. The reasons to see it keep climbing even before you hear anything else about it.

But the real reason to get into the Hudson, to do whatever you can to get a ticket, is to welcome back the incomparable Lily Rabe to Broadway. As Brooke Wyeth, the play’s protagonist(?), Rabe employs her deep, textured voice and her wildly sensitive face to dig out Brooke’s dilemmas. Brooke arrives at her parents’ house on Christmas Eve, 2004 with copies of her new book. They think it’s a novel, but it’s actually a memoir. Her father, Lyman (Harris), and mother, Polly (Louis-Dreyfus), are old-guard Republicans, friends of Ron and Nancy, and do not align politically with their daughter, particularly when it comes to the War on Terror. But there’s more to it than liberal vs conservative – the real war is between a child and her parents. 

Brooke has recently recovered from a breakdown and Lyman and Polly flew from their Palm Springs abode to stay with her in what is described as a dark cottage in Sag Harbor. That their daughter’s wellness was a drop-everything priority for the couple then becomes something Polly, especially, can wield as proof that she does love her – more than anything – even as she can be critical and disagreeable. Because they did this kind thing for Brooke, they can then use that to deflect Brooke’s calling them out on their behavior.  

Rabe thrillingly embodies this continuum between adult and child, between power and powerlessness. Baitz doesn’t let Brooke be wholly right, even though she is the central character and, at least in my experience of the play, the audience stand-in. Rabe lets Brooke’s moral superiority reign over her parents, in a loving way at first, and then as a judgment of their character. 

But the family does have profound love for each other, which is the key to what makes Baitz’s play so successful. They are fighting about tough, heartbreaking, family-shattering things, but their ultimate goal is protection: of each other, individually, and of the family as a whole. As much as they bicker, there’s an underlying alliance that becomes gradually apparent. We see all this through Rabe’s delicate navigation of the text. 

Louis-Dreyfus is also spectacular as Polly, particularly in the play’s first two thirds. Everyone on the planet knows how funny she is and she deploys each of Polly’s verbal missiles with expert aim. But in films like Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said and You Hurt My Feelings, Louis-Dreyfus has proved herself to be a brilliant dramatic actress, able to pull genuine sadness and pain past her comedic exterior. As Polly transforms in the last section of Other Desert Cities, though, Louis-Dreyfus becomes a bit too small, a bit too internal for the stage. There’s a retreat away from the presence she commanded before just as we should finally see some of that trauma come through. 

John Benjamin Hickey’s sure-handed production is straightforward, with no added frills. Scott Pask’s set and Tom Broecker’s costumes are tasteful and befitting the Wyeth family’s economic status and desert living. Harris and Janney are giving similarly perfunctory performances, hitting the emotional beats, but not really bringing much to the stage beyond their starpower and natural talent. Joe Keery, as Brooke’s younger brother Trip, delivers a stellar Broadway debut, particularly in a scene with Rabe at the top of Act II. Keery has an ease with the character and there’s genuine chemistry.

Overall, this revival of Other Desert Cities is a showcase of Jon Robin Baitz’s writing and the skill that Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lily Rabe have to bring characters to life. The power of this play was still felt, fifteen years after its debut and twenty-two years after it’s set, as chatter filled the theatre once the curtain came down. I heard people say, “I hope my kids don’t write a book about me!” How interesting that they can relate to the parents. I heard someone say, “This is a true story. I heard about this happening.” It’s not, but the play – and Rabe’s performance – are that convincing.