Other Desert Cities - American Lives & Politics
When I see a play like Other Desert Cities, I realize how very different American culture really is. In Canada, our politics just do not have the same strongly opposing points of view. Red versus blue, Republicans versus Democrats, conservatives versus liberals. And in this Arts Club production, created by a Canadian artistic team, I wonder if we can ever truly understand the depths of this dichotomy.
On its face, Other Desert Cities is a family drama set in the heat of Palm Springs, California on Christmas Eve 2004. Liberal daughter and novelist Brooke Wyeth has returned from the East Coast to visit her extremely right-wing parents Lyman and Polly, her reality show producer brother Trip and alcoholic aunt Silda. Though all seems fairly smooth at the beginning, we learn that Brooke's next book will stir up family ghosts and potentially cause public embarrassment. A merry Christmas, indeed.
Director Rachel Ditor skims the surface of the depths of this play. Just as the swimming pool that no one swims in, this production fails to jump in and express what's really going on. The script is potentially very sharp, yet the characterizations are held back by directorial and design choices. Why is Polly wearing a loose-fitting muumuu even though she is an exacting and elegant matriarch with an affinity for name brand clothes? (Shouldn't the alcoholic sister be wearing something like that?) What's with the teacups that don't have hot tea in them? (They look empty even from my seat in the balcony.) And why is there a swimming pool at all? (The actors are forced to work very far upstage on a shallow stage, then they walk around the edge to be closer to the audience and finally the pool disappears for no reason partway through the first act.) Everything keeps the actors apart but they need to be enabled to confront, love and forgive each other.
With last year's production of Clybourne Park by the Arts Club Theatre, I better understood the American take on race and class. In Other Desert Cities, I was less certain about the right wing versus left wing take on politics as it was happening within one family. Sure, I got the most of the jokes, the sniping back and forth. But I didn't get why this memoir was such a big deal because I never believed that any of these people seriously believed in their own political convictions but only in their own self-importance. Perhaps in this production, the family drama was seen as the heart of the story. But it only matters when it is rooted in the reality of contrasting American political beliefs.