Theatre in Review: Other Desert Cities (Lincoln Center Theatre/Mitzi Newhouse Theatre)

	Linda Lavin and Stockard Channing. Photo: Joan Marcus

"The time to make up your mind about people is never," wrote Philip Barry. They're words that Jon Robin Baitz has seemingly taken to heart in Other Desert Cities, and the result is, far and away, his best play in years.

The allusion to Barry, author of The Philadelphia Story, seem apt as well, for Baitz, despite his up-to-the-minute subject matter, is, in many ways, the last practitioner of the kind of highly polished domestic drama, with social overtones, that was once the territory of Barry and S. N. Behrman. This explains, in part, why a certain stuffiness suffused such earlier Baitz works as A Far Country, Ten Unknowns, and The Paris Letter. Another reason was the author's somewhat humorless, moralizing ways. All too often, it's been child's play to separate the wicked (read: conservative) from the good (liberal) characters in his world. Such finger-pointing left the audience with little or nothing to discover for itself.

Not so in Other Desert Cities, which benefits both from cunning construction and a cast of characters armed with a volley of zingers, each of which hits its target with military precision. It's the mid-'90s and Christmas is about to be celebrated in the home of Lyle and Polly Wyeth, former Hollywood royalty (he acted, she wrote screenplays) and, later, major players in the Republican Party. (Polly was one of Nancy Reagan's great friends.) However, the family members gathered for this holy day are a highly toxic bunch. There's Silda Grauman, Polly's sister and collaborator, a fierce liberal and now a penniless drunk living off her family. (Polly has erased any evidence of her own Jewishness, opting for a high-WASP gloss.) There's Trip, Lyle and Polly's son, a genial sort who has crossed over to Hollywood's dark side, where he produces a reality TV series that is an unholy cross between The People's Court and Dancing with the Stars. And, most dangerous of all, there's Brooke, Trip and Polly's daughter, a once-promising novelist who has suffered more recently from writer's block and clinical depression.

Baitz doesn't waste a second in establishing a frank, funny atmosphere in which sniping at each other is the family sport. When Polly makes fun of Silda's new blouse, which the latter insists is a Pucci, Silda shoots back, "This Pucci is a lot more real than your Pat Buckley shtick." Criticizing her daughter's attitude, Polly, who should know, says, "Sarcasm is the purview of teenagers and homosexuals." The family plans to hold its holiday dinner at the local country club, leading Brooke to comment, "God made country clubs so half-goy hipsters and their aging parents don't have to cook." Leave it to Silda, made cranky by the lack of drink, to observe about her home, "Palm Springs isn't a refuge; it's King Tut's tomb. The whole town is filled with mummies with tans."

Brooke's Christmas present to her family is the final draft of her new book, which is already generating buzz in New York publishing circles. (Among other things, an excerpt from The New Yorker is in the works.) It's a family memoir, focused on the son nobody ever wants to talk about. A casualty of the Vietnam era, he fried his brain on drugs and radical politics, and, after taking part in a Kathy Boudin-style crime that led to the death of an innocent bystander, killed himself. Brooke's memoir may be called Love and Mercy, but it's safe to say that the manuscript contains little of either when it comes to her parents and their treatment of their firstborn.

Any attempt at holiday cheer is quickly abandoned as the recriminations pile up, especially after it becomes clear that Silda has egged Brooke on, feeding her details of the family tragedy that she is too young to remember. It's here that Baitz displays his skill at throwing curveballs, as a series of confrontations -- and one nuclear bombshell of a revelation -- make it crystal clear that nothing in this family is what it seems. As Other Desert Cities shows, it's the secrets hidden inside families -- even those kept with the most sterling of intentions -- that warp everyone's vision, leading to long-term misery and unappeased rancor.

Baitz has never before built such a devastating dramatic trap, and aided by five superb performances under Joe Mantello's seamless direction, it is sprung to stunning effect. You're likely to leave the theatre debating who is more scarily hilarious -- Stockard Channing's stoic, acid-tongued Polly or Linda Lavin's Silda, a wisecracking Hollywood basket case. When you have the two most gifted handlers of comic dialogue of their generation together on one stage, it's hard to believe everyone else will be able to hold their own, but Stacey Keach does just fine as the stern, but loving, patriarch who can't stand to watch his family unravel, and Thomas Sadowski grows from scene to scene as Trip, the family peacemaker, who nevertheless has plenty of tough opinions to share. In the pivotal role of Brooke, Elizabeth Marvel builds an indelible character defined by self-delusion and misdirected rage. I'll not soon forget the animal howl of woe that comes from her when the truth is finally revealed.

All of this unfolds on a wickedly accurate set by John Lee Beatty. The designer is especially gifted at suggesting a play's larger locale -- one look at the set of Proof, for example, and you didn't need a Playbill to inform you that you were in Chicago - and here he creates a setting that screams California mid-century modern. (Key details include a curved stone wall, a white circular fireplace with suspended chimney hanging overhead, and the white-and-tan color scheme.) Kenneth Posner's typically sleek and unfussy lighting easily suggests several times of day, from blinding morning sunlight to a troubled post-cocktail hour glow. David Zinn's highly observant costumes provide an amusing contrast between Polly's Ralph Lauren-inspired style and Silda's slightly blowsier look. The contrast between Polly and Brooke's wardrobes tells you as much about the mother-daughter standoff as anything in the script. Jill BC DuBoff provided the unobtrusive sound design.

Most of Baitz's plays have tried to crossbreed family infighting with broader political concerns, but he has never been so successful at it as he is here. His timing is lucky; just as we're caught up in a national conversation about civility, he provides us a vivid demonstration of the perils of rushing to judgment, even against the people you think you knew best. A Broadway transfer has been announced for the fall; it won't be a moment too soon, --David Barbour