Reviews

Couched in real-life events affecting Republicans Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and James Oughton, Other Desert Cities not only explores family politics, but the complexities inherent in families addicted to preserving a public image.

Jon Baitz’s explosive script has the audience eavesdropping on the family reunion of Senator Lyman Wyeth, his wife Polly, their grown-up children Brooke and Trip, and Polly’s sister Silda. When Brooke, a writer, reveals she has written her account of the most painful chapter of the family’s history, all hell breaks loose.

This unusual production is actually a sort of choreography sampler. There is no dialogue – mercifully for the performers, as they dance continually – and hence no plot. (Imaginative people, however, may devise their own story; plenty of clues are there for a variety of narratives.)

When Christen O’Leary belted out “The Trolley Song” towards the end of the first act, the stage lit up, the excitement built and the atmosphere was electric. In that one moment O’Leary captured the performing essence of show-business icon Judy Garland, the subject of British playwright Peter Quliter’s End of the Rainbow. The play set in London in 1968, dealt with the final weeks in the star’s life as she attempted to fulfil an engagement at London’s Talk of the Town struggling with alcohol and pill addiction.

Dickens’ story of an orphan who finds a loving home, after a detour via London’s 19th century Underbelly, and the songs from Lionel Bart’s musical version, need little introduction.

Darkened in mood for the 1990s Sam Mendes / Cameron Mackintosh production, with atmospheric orchestrations and pruning of its musical comedy elements, it’s now probably closer to a contemporary music theatre piece than the effervescent 1960 original.