Other Desert Cities is a 2011 play by American playwright Jon Robin Baitz. Set in Palm Springs, California, the play follows well-to-do, aging Republicans Lyman and Polly Wyeth as their daughter, Brooke, a liberal-leaning writer, threatens to expose a disturbing family secret. The play opens in the run-up to Christmas Eve, 2004. At their opulent desert ranch, Polly and Lyman Wyeth welcome their family for Christmas. Lyman is a former U.S. ambassador, appointed by Ronald Reagan, whose politics he shares unreservedly. Like Reagan, Lyman began his career as a Hollywood actor; he met Polly while she was working as a screenwriter. Initially, a liberal, Polly’s politics have shifted rightwards during her second career as a political wife. Staying with them is Polly’s sister, Silda. During Polly’s days as a screenwriter, Silda was her partner. Together they wrote a series of successful comedies for MGM in the 1960s. However, since Polly’s departure for marriage and politics, Silda’s career has stalled and she has become depressed and an alcoholic. The sisters’ relationship is tense, in part because Silda’s politics remain liberal and in part because Silda resents Polly for abandoning their writing partnership. Silda and Polly trade barbs with all the polish of comedy writers and all the long-held antagonism of sibling rivalry. Since her recent stint in rehab, Silda has been living with the Wyeths, and it’s unclear whether she is willing or able to leave. Into this already tense situation arrives the Wyeths’ daughter, Brooke. She lives in New York, as far from her parents as she can get. After the success of her debut novel, her follow-up has been long awaited, but Brooke has only published magazine articles for several years now. The Wyeths worry about their daughter: she is single, after a divorce that left her seriously depressed. They disapprove of her “lefty” politics and resent that she disapproves of theirs. Nevertheless, Brooke has good news: she’s about to publish a book. Her parents are glad that the second novel has finally materialized. Their son, Trip, is here too. He lives in L.A. where he works as a producer on a popular courtroom-based reality TV show. He is a heartless womanizer. Although his politics are as “lefty” as his sister’s, he’s closer to his parents, especially Polly. The family is already bubbling with inter-generational anxiety when Brooke announces that her second book is not a novel: it is a memoir. Specifically, it is a memoir of her relationship with her brother Henry—the brother her parents don’t like to talk about. We learn that Henry was involved with a radical movement, not unlike the Weather Underground, based in Venice, California. After the movement bombed an Army recruitment center, accidentally killing a janitor, Henry committed suicide. In Brooke’s version of Henry’s story, he is the hero, a young man who “went to war” with his fascistically right-wing parents. Their heartlessness and ignorance drove him deeper and deeper into radical politics and caused his suicide. Brooke accuses Polly and Lyman of a further act of cruelty by refusing to talk about Henry or acknowledging his importance: “He was most of my world,” she declares. Brooke doesn’t expect her parents to agree with her version of events, but she does want their blessing before she publishes the book. The Wyeths’ initial response is: no. Brooke accuses them of caring only about their public reputation, but as the argument unfolds, it becomes clear that there is something deeper at stake. Polly and Lyman have good reasons to allow Brooke to publish. They are frightened that they might lose another child to suicide if her depression returns, and they recognize that she needs independence. Brooke’s greatest fear is becoming like her “crippled” friends who live on parental money. Privately, the Wyeths also question Brooke’s motives for framing her book as a memoir: does she really need to tell (her version of) the truth? Or is she just hoping that her famous parents’ real names will sell her book? Meanwhile, Silda is over-the-moon, crowing that Brooke’s story vindicates her long-standing anger about her sister’s choices. As the family argues, Brooke recognizes for the first time how deeply her depression frightened and saddened her parents. Freed to some extent from her anger at them, she honestly asks herself whether she needs to publish the memoir, and decides that she does, with or without her parents’ blessing. The Wyeths submit, revealing their deeper reason for opposing publication. Unbeknown to Brooke, Henry came to his parents in the aftermath of the bombing—their first contact in years. Henry begged them to help him, claiming that he had no knowledge of the bombing. When Lyman insisted that he turn himself over the police anyway, they argued and Lyman slapped his son. Henry ran away. Three weeks later, Polly found him, and she and Lyman helped him escape to Canada. The Wyeths faked Henry’s suicide, telling no one, not even Brooke. Brooke hurls her manuscript pages in the air, hurling abuse at her parents for putting her through the years of thinking her brother was dead. She tells them that she suffered depression rather than kill herself because she didn’t want her parents to endure another suicide. Nevertheless, the family is partially reconciled, and the Wyeths give Brooke their permission to publish, but only after their deaths. An epilogue is set at the publishing of the memoir, many years later. Brooke discusses her brother and wonders if she will ever see him again. Other Desert Cities premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in 2011, transferring to Broadway later that year. It was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in the Drama category and praised by the New York Times as “the most thoroughly integrated and sustained work from Mr. Baitz.” The title refers to a guide sign on a California freeway, pointing drivers to “Indio, California and Other Desert Cities.”

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Jon Robin Baitz

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