Run don’t walk to see Other Desert Cities in Armonk
We knew it was a coup for Armonk when the Hudson Stage Company, after a ten-year run at PACE University, signed on as Artists-in-Residence at Whippoorwill Hall in June 2014. Producer Olivia Sklar and Artistic Director Denise Bessette wasted no time in their effort to impress by reaching into their Rolodex and pulling out jazz headliner Ann Hampton Callaway and her Drama Desk and Tony Award-nominated (The Spitfire Grill, Baby) sister Liz for a star-studded gala that year. They followed up this June with composer Stephen Schwartz of Wicked, Pippin and Godspell fame.
It’s time for mistletoe and holly.
But we got a feel for the quality of Off-Broadway theatre they deliver on Saturday night with their production of Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities – a witty drama of a family dying the proverbial thousand deaths every time they see each other. Like on Christmas, when mom and dad, Polly and Lyman Wyeth – BFFs with Nancy and Ronald Reagan, their moderately well adjusted son Trip, and their daughter Brooke celebrate the holidays with the unveiling of her memoir about how her unforgiving, status seeking parents drove her brother, the sixties radical, to suicide. Oh, by gosh, by golly. It’s time for mistletoe and holly.
Director Dan Foster’s (whose resume includes Playwrights Horizons and the Manhattan Theatre Club) production was so deft it seemed like he must have done this before. In fact he did – having recently directed the play at the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket with two of the principal actors in this production, Colleen Zenk and Davy Raphaely.
Here, Mr. Foster directs a group of professional actors sporting credits that include Broadway and off-Broadway roles at La Mama, The Working Theatre, The Negro Ensemble Company, Princeton’s McCarter Theatre, the NY Shakespeare Festival, the Philadelphia Shakespeare Company and the Westport Country Playhouse. They have played opposite Paul Newman, Chita Rivera and Donald O’Connor. And their film and TV credits include House of Cards, 30 Rock, Annie and As the World Turns. Imagine that – at the North Castle Public Library.
If you think they’re show-people – they’re show people!
On Saturday night the sold-out theatre was liberally sprinkled with Manhattan theatre types – if you think they’re show- people – they’re show-people. That and David Arsenault’s staging of a mid-century modern Palm Springs living room – right there in Whippoorwill Hall – heightened the anticipation and raised our hopes.
They were soon fulfilled when Colleen Zenk (Polly Wyeth) strutted on stage in her little tennis outfit and Republican short-do and delivered her first line: “All I am saying Brooke is that I don’t know how the hell you stand those East Coast winters …” Which we all know means, “When are you going to move back home?”
The Nancy behind Ronnie
Baitz, who received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for Other Desert Cities, seemingly hangs a sign around Polly’s neck that can only read one thing: “I’m the bitch.” Forged with lines like: “Why are we having this discussion? Because you’re a moron,” And, “If you have a lousy serve, darling, you have a lousy serve …”, Baitz assigns any actor playing Polly a heavy load. She is the Nancy behind Ronnie – the Iron Lady combating the “despair” that “runs through the family.”
Ms. Zenk, a three-time Emmy nominee in her 32 years as Barbara Ryan on CBS-TV’s As the World Turns, drives the play from start to finish, propping up lost souls, holding the family together, maintaining order, preserving dignity (just like Nancy taught her) and delivering a nuanced performance that transforms Polly (thanks in no small part to a surprise ending that changes everything) into the fully formed three-dimensional character Baitz envisioned.
Her performance was so delicious we want to see it again. We even checked out Stockard Channing and Pamela Reed playing Polly on YouTube and (maybe it’s because we’re morons) but we’ll take Ms. Zenk.
If Ms. Zenk stokes the engine and drives the train, Davy Rafaely, as brother Trip, cushions the curves. The producer of the fictional TV Show Jury of My Peers where “moth-eaten, down on their luck has-been” celebs serve as the jury to real court cases, Trip is of the family but not really in it.
He’s the referee in the family and his impeccable comedic timing is well suited for the character’s “no harm- no foul” approach to avoiding confrontation. Mr. Rafaely has appeared in 11 productions with the Philadelphia Shakespeare and we expect to see him on an ensemble sit-com one day – hopefully soon.
Malachy Cleary’s performance captures all the elements of the scarecrow, tin-man and cowardly lion, each of which is wrapped up inside one desperate dad, Lyman Wyeth. We wonder if Malachy wakes up each morning and looks in the mirror to see if he indeed is Stacy Keach (who originated the role) after all. He more than holds his own. There, but for the grace of god, go Malachy.
“Honey, Newsflash. You’re not a Texan. You’re a Jew!”
Peggy Scott, whose TV credits include House of Cards, Ugly Betty and 30 Rock, also provides comedic relief as Polly’s recovering alcoholic sister. She proves she can dish with Polly at her best with one of the most memorable lines of the night directed at her overly assimilated sister, “Honey, Newsflash. You’re not a Texan. You’re a Jew!”
And Brenda Withers, in her return to the HSC stage, as the novelist daughter Brooke, goes belly to belly with Ms. Zenk all night long (not an easy task) without giving an inch. Ms. Withers is an actor, writer and co-founder of the Harbor Stage Company on Cape Cod.
Everything seems to be coming up roses for Armonk in recent years and the Hudson Stage Company is one of its finest blooms. Run don’t walk to see Other Desert Cities in Armonk. It continues at the North Castle Library’s Whippoorwill Hall through October 31. (All photos courtesy of Rana Faure.)
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