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| saturday FEBRUARY 28 | sunday march 01 2015
the north shore weekend
LIFESTYLE & ARTS
out & about Photography by Robin Subar
What’s your favorite restaurant on the North Shore?
Diane Maldonado, Highland Park
Backyard Grill in Highland Park.
Theater Review Geoff Isaac (Lyman Wyeth), Ellen Phelps (Polly Wyeth), Drew Wieland (Trip Wyeth), and Judy Lea Steele (Silda Grauman) as family members at odds in “Other Desert Cities” at Citadel Theatre.
Play packs an emotional punch BY Jill soderberg
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Gabriella Dalla Valle, Winnetka
Donna Sitko, Highland Park
Bake 425.
Hewn in Evanston.
Eric Avenaim, Highland Park
Elizabeth Mayes, Lake Forest and Kyle Peters, Highland Park
Taste on Chestnut.
Elizabeth: Shakou in Libertyville. Kyle: Inovasi in Lake Bluff.
urely the extreme winter chill makes a visit to Palm Springs appealing, but a trip to that California desert resort as rendered on the Citadel Theatre stage in its current production, “Other Desert Cities,” comes (like all travel) with complications. Jon Robin Baitz’s family drama with a political twist comes packed with tension (like all travel) as it contemplates integrity, privacy, artistic conscience, and the limits of loyalty. That said, director Mark Lococo and his solid ensemble cast make the trip enormously entertaining and entirely worthwhile. In Baitz’s story, set in 2004 against the backdrop of the Iraq war, the fictional Wyeths, G.O.P. royalty, the kind whose social circle includes Nancy Reagan and Betsy Bloomingdale, have retreated from Los Angeles to Palm Springs. Lyman, the kindly and accommodating patriarch, is a former actor and United States ambassador. His wife, Polly, once a Hollywood screenwriter, stands by his side as a strong-willed socialite, who is free with her pronouncements. As she pours herself a drink (at 8 a.m.), Polly observes, “This water needs vodka…[pause]…for flavor.” Sharing their home is Polly’s sister and former writing partner, Silda, a recovering alcoholic with left-leaning politics who likewise says what she thinks, especially when it might rile Polly — such as, “Palm Springs is King Tut’s
tomb. The whole town is filled with mummies with tans.” The repartee between the sisters is sharp, but their exchange, like two old comics, doesn’t sideline the story. Which begins when the Wyeths’ liberal daughter Brooke, a struggling writer who has battled depression, comes home for Christmas seeking her family’s approval of her new book. The soon-to-bepublished work is a tell-all memoir about her brother, Henry, a Weatherman-type activist whose radicalism led to his involvement in a bomb plot and to his eventual suicide. Dredging up and publicizing the memory of the scandal associated with their estranged son is anathema to the Wyeths. Their surviving son, Trip, a reality-TV show producer, interested only in keeping familial peace, understands the book’s ramifications and tells Brooke, “This will sort of kill them, don’t you know?” Ellen Phelps as Polly delivers her quips with authority, as when she informs Brooke, “I think living on the East Coast has given you the impression that sarcasm is alluring and charming. It is not. Sarcasm is the purview of teenagers and homosexuals.” But she most fully embodies her character when mother and daughter engage in heated exchange. When Phelps as Polly declares, “I know who I am,” it’s clear that she does indeed. As Lyman, Geoff Isaac is especially affecting when he gives light to long-held family secrets, thus revealing his character’s moral
struggle. Judy Lea Steele nails the acerbic Silda as well as the acquiescent one. Drew Wieland’s Trip is a convincingly amiable foil to his depressive sister Brooke, played by Whitney Morse, whose artistic conflict is summarized when she tells her parents, “You are asking me to shut down something that makes me possible.” For a grande dame with polish, Polly could sport a more coiffed look, and Lyman’s distinguished style could be dialed up; both could work on their tans. But Eric Luchen’s sunken-living-room set is spot-on, and Cameron Petti’s sound design supports the story and the scene. I think I recognized the melody of the jazz standard “Make Someone Happy,” a concept elusive in the Wyeth family, whose members are affectionate one moment, aggressive the next. Baitz’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated “Other Desert Cities” was performed on Broadway in 2011 and at the Goodman Theatre in 2013. I saw both productions of this smart, engaging play. Citadel’s current staging of the work delivers an emotional punch every bit as powerful. “Other Desert Cities” runs through March 15 with performances presented Thursday through Sunday on the Citadel Theatre stage at the west campus of Lake Forest High School, 300 South Waukegan Road. Matinees are on Sundays at 3 p.m. and on Wednesday, March 4, at 11 a.m. For tickets and information, call 847-735-8554 or visit citadeltheatre.org.