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Script for Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz. The play that Ben Brantley of the New York Times called, 'The most richly enjoyable new play for grown-ups.leaves you feeling both moved and gratifyingly sated.'
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In OTHER DESERT CITIES, Brooke Wyeth returns home to Palm Springs to visit her parents after a six-year absence. A once-promising novelist, she announces to her family the imminent publication of a memoir dredging up a pivotal and tragic event in the family's history - a wound that her parents don't want reopened.
Brooke has come home to draw a line in the sand and is darin...more
Brooke has come home to draw a line in the sand and is darin...more
Published November 29th 2011 by Grove Press (first published November 15th 2011)
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Feb 14, 2013Kenny rated it it was amazing
Yes, it’s another bickering-family play ~~ but oh how this one’s done right ~~ so right, with sharply drawn characters and dialogue that zings into disconcerting territory. Writer Jon Robin Baitz make us believe in this family: we feel the emotional push and pull between five willful, creative, word-savvy and tired people. Clearly it’s taken years to get this bunch to the tipping point: just seconds from a potentially catastrophic family blow-up, but still keeping up their normal routine of josh...more
'Other Desert Cities' is an intriguing play that was a little too slick and, in the end, slight for this reader. It probably plays better than it reads, epsecially with Stockard Channing and Linda Lavin (who has since left the play). Two very gifted performers. But by the time you finish the play, all the sharp dialogue, the repartee, the shrewd humor turn tiresome. And what is the play about? Very, very little.
It's popular with critics, especially Ben Brantley. His sights are set too too low...more
Feb 15, 2015Karen rated it it was ok
Another living room drama in which a Big Family Secret is revealed. Seriously, can American theatre come up with nothing else? The central question is an interesting one: does the writer have the right to tell her family's story for personal gain? Unfortunately, we get sidetracked by lazy jokes, cliche political barbs, and mini-reveals that add little to the story but more drama.
Jun 21, 2012Tung rated it really liked it
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for 2012, Other Desert Cities takes place in Palm Springs, California where a young woman (Brooke) returns home for Christmas to visit her parents (Polly and Lyman), brother (Trip), and Aunt Silda. Polly and Lyman are rich, and staunch conservatives (Lyman worked for the Reagan administration), however their children don’t share their conservative values. While the play could have focused on the cliché tension between children who don’t share their par...more
Another play about chic sophisticates with emotional problems and first-world worries. Painfully burdened by the indignity of being published in a series of national magazines, the daughter of a movie star (and renowned political honcho) is wracked by anxiety about how her family will react to her new book. So, she leaves her home in Sag Harbor to visit her parents and younger brother for Christmas in Palm Springs. They play tennis, crack wise about Judaism and reality television, go shopping, a...more
Jul 28, 2018Jon rated it really liked it
A fantastic, lesser-known family drama in the veins of The Humans. It's just as eerily relevant in today's political climate, as it was when it was first staged.
Good
Apr 07, 2013Sarah rated it it was ok
I found all the characters hard to like. I know the audience is supposed to like at least one of these people, but I couldn't figure out which one. The daughter, Brooke, was selfish, the parents were stiff, the aunt was kooky and the son, Trip was sarcastic. In finding it hard to relate to these people, I found it hard to care about how this whole family drama turned out. I was excited about it when I saw the original cast listing, so maybe the actors saved it and are sympathetic on stage, but t...more
I tried to get day-of tickets to OTHER DESERT CITIES recently but refused to pay $120/seat. So I bought the script instead. I was able to picture Stockard Channing, Judith Light, and Rachel Griffiths in the roles, which made the reading fun. It's a quick read with the usual awful/delicious family revelations at the end, including a few good twists. I liked the 'conservative parents/liberal kids' overlay, too.
I also bought the script to AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, which I'll read next, when I feel the...more
I also bought the script to AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, which I'll read next, when I feel the...more
The more I read brilliant plays the more I know that I don't have what it takes to write one. Not that I won't. Not that I'll never have what it takes but damn, playwrights are good at what they do. The dialogue is crisp and flawless. The characters jump right out of the book and into my living room (just ask my neighbors, who had to listen through the walls as I read this). The story moves with ferocity towards it's inevitable end in a way that is impossible to bear and deeply satisfying. It ma...more
Mar 25, 2013Susan Drislane rated it really liked it
First play I've read in way too many years! This is a moving portrayal of the extensive damage caused by keeping family secrets and the losses we suffer because of fear. Real family tragedy here with comic relief--and insight--from Silda!
Damn! Just, DAMN! What an intense and uncomfortably brilliant look at family. Unbelievable! Clybourne Park better knock my socks off to validate why it won the Pulitzer and the Tony of this astonishing piece.
Jan 20, 2017Lindsay Wilson rated it really liked it
Turns out I'm all plays, all the time so far this year. This is a good one. It of course relies on being well-cast to deliver the drama, but Baitz does a good job capturing family dynamics and the tensions of having different political views. Well-written and compelling.
plays about dead characters who are never appear on stage are a cop out - especially when the main protagonist is a writer. sowwy!
Rounding up from 3.5 stars. This isn't a bad play, but I think I was expecting a bit more. I would still like to see a good production of it before I'm fully decided.
It's the story of a wealthy Southern California family. The parents are very entrenched in Reagan Republican circles. Daughter Brooke is a writer who has been stalled for several years on a second book, and she throws the whole family into a spin when she announces that she has a publication lined up, and it is a memoir. It's the st...more
It's the story of a wealthy Southern California family. The parents are very entrenched in Reagan Republican circles. Daughter Brooke is a writer who has been stalled for several years on a second book, and she throws the whole family into a spin when she announces that she has a publication lined up, and it is a memoir. It's the st...more
Jan 20, 2019Tyler Dean rated it really liked it
Other Desert Cities Movie
In Jon Robin Baitz's cleverly written play, family drama comes to head in a shocking way. The Wyeth family consists of the extremely conservative parents Lyman and Polly, their youngest son Trip, their liberal daughter Brooke, who is the protagonist of the story, as well as Polly's seemingly insane sister, Silda. Brooke and Trip have come to visit their parents in Palm Springs for Christmas, and while there, Brooke presents a manuscript she is publishing about the darkest chapter of their family...more
I didn’t love Other Desert Cities, which was nominated for a Pulitzer in 2012, but it should have won. Of the three plays nominated that year, it keeps a laser focus on the central plot and plays with the idea of family dysfunction within a story that doesn’t wholly work but is ambitious and thought provoking.
The Wyeth family, rich and conservative, had a tragedy befall them a few decades before: their oldest joined with anti-war protestors, blew up a recruitment center, and then committed suici...more
The Wyeth family, rich and conservative, had a tragedy befall them a few decades before: their oldest joined with anti-war protestors, blew up a recruitment center, and then committed suici...more
Feb 04, 2019Suzanne rated it it was amazing
While I go to plays frequently, I haven't actually read one in years and I was amazed by how the story came to life with just dialogue. That shouldn't be a surprise, but it was. By the time I got used to the format I had entered a richly developed world with a devastating family story at its center. Brooke, a daughter of privilege & money (and heartache) comes home with a draft of her memoir that skewers and devastates her conservative parents. She longs for their blessing even knowing how u...more
Mar 25, 2018Daniel Stepanic rated it it was amazing
Classic exposition of the modern family dynamic twisted around a truly unique and interesting backstory. Hyperbolic self-righteous mother and hands-off even-keeled father. Adult children, reverting back to the spoiled dynamics of their youth. Loved following the ups and downs all the way to the shocking yet grounded conclusion.
Nov 24, 2017Timothy Scholl rated it it was amazing
A remarkable play. Jon Robin Baitz again strikes quickly with characters who surprise you. It is a facet of Baitz's writing that his work is always more than the sum of its parts. This is a tremendously satisfying play and I look forward to seeing it in production.
This is the script to a play that I have seen several times. Interesting story of how we label people and think we have them pegged by their politics or social status. We can be very wrong. Even with family.
Aug 02, 2018Kat rated it it was ok · review of another edition
Not a bad play, but maybe I'm just tired of White Family Drama with Dark Secrets Revealed In Act II
So glad to reread this wonderful play. I was fortunate to see its Broadway transfer in 2012 with Channing, Keach and the wonderful Judith Light.
Apr 09, 2015Wendy Bousfield rated it it was amazing
This witty, heartbreaking, short play is insightful about the different narratives various family members construct about the events they have all experienced. Brooke and her younger brother, Trip, are spending Christmas with their parents, Lyman and Polly Wyeth, in Palm Springs, California. Brooke, her parents, and brother are public figures, involved in politics or mass entertainment. Brooke writes short pieces for popular magazines. Brooke’s father, Lyman was a leading man, ambassador, and fr...more
I saw “Other Desert Cities” on Broadway in February of 2012 and knew when I saw it that I would want to sit down and read it at a later date. Having just recently read it I am surprised that my reaction to seeing it and reading it about 2 years apart was almost the same.
The second act of this play is by far the strongest, mainly because the protagonist of Brooke Wyeth is put in her place a little. She is a whiny, arrogant woman, who pretty much blames her troubles in life on a brother’s suicide...more
The second act of this play is by far the strongest, mainly because the protagonist of Brooke Wyeth is put in her place a little. She is a whiny, arrogant woman, who pretty much blames her troubles in life on a brother’s suicide...more
What seems familiar, and superficially dated, about the play is the theme of children, especially children of privilege, rebelling against the politics and values of their parents. I am old enough to remember the late 1960′s and came of age in the 1970′s. Children of the counterculture in conflict with conservative parents over the war in Vietnam and, by extension, all the parents’ “middle-class” values was a common theme in the popular culture of the 1970′s.
Given the lux, mid-century set, were...more
Given the lux, mid-century set, were...more
Polly Wyeth returns to Palm Springs to spend Christmas with her parents - lifelong Republicans on first name basis with the Reagans and the Bushes - and her brother, who produces shlock reality TV shows with great monetary success. Polly does not arrive empty handed; her gift to the family is a tell-all memoir already accepted for publication by Knopf, excerpts of which are to run in the February New Yorker magazine. The memoir reveals a deeply buried family secret: the story of the Wyeths' elde...more
Other Desert Cities is a solid, well-made play about family conflict. I had a few quibbles with the punctuation, but the characters as expressed through the language almost always ring true, which is to say we understand why they are doing saying what they are doing and saying.
Don't expect anything particularly original about the themes, characterizations, staging, etc; we've seen these characters in one form or another over the years.
Nevertheless, I gave the play four stars (I might have given...more
Don't expect anything particularly original about the themes, characterizations, staging, etc; we've seen these characters in one form or another over the years.
Nevertheless, I gave the play four stars (I might have given...more
Jun 19, 2013Shannon rated it really liked it
A very good play about family history and secrets and what they can do to the people closest to us. The Wyeth family is full of secrets that all come to a head one Christmas, when their daughter returns for a visit, her first in years, with a manuscript (autobiography) in tow. Her parents, an very well read, conservative couple with powerful political ties, are chagrined and desperate to stop her from publishing something that will disrupt/destroy their very orderly life, a life that has not rec...more
Feb 28, 2013Brian rated it really liked it
Excellent dialogue, but subtlety is not a strong suit in this play. Here you have an attempt at a clash of generations within a family - the liberal children versus the conservative parents, and an attempt by one of the said children to call out the parents for their hypocrisy. I thought the conflict was well illustrated, and I can definitely see how this would play very well on stage. But again, the subtlety is missing here - where are the shades of grey rather than the stereotypes that are so...more
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Robbie Baitz was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Edward Baitz, an executive of the Carnation Company. Baitz was raised in Brazil and South Africa before the family returned to California, where he attended Beverly Hills High School.[1] After graduation, he worked as a bookstore clerk and assistant to two producers, and the experiences became the basis for his first play, a one-acter en...more