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 recovered fully from unfortunate circumstances years before.In the play, as in life, there are no easy answers. A wonderful read!“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” Mitch Albom 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 the writing belies any of that.This is a privileged family, reminiscent of Ronald Reagan. The children never had to worry about money, and so became successful, self-absorbed, and then depressed. The conflict of the play is: Brooke is a novelist who decides to write a nonfiction narrative about her dead brother, who was involved in a semi-terrorist group when the father was on the political rise. She has been in a slump and has not been inspired to write anything since that semi-successful first novel. How will her parents react to this news when she tells them over the Christmas holiday that she has a publisher for her new book? Who cares? Not me. The way these characters started, I knew there could not be a happy resolution. Oh, they're all so sad; oh, they're all so repressed; oh, has any one of them actually ever had a genuine feeling? Melodrama galore. Self-righteousness galore. Huge disappointment for me. Does not make me jealous on how the other half lives if it is this hollow.
What do You think about Other Desert Cities (2011)?
A well executed play, pulled down my the weight of rich white people problems.
—kathrinejoans
Just worked on a project with this play, urgent and necessary.
—leilei7589
