Lyman and Pol­ly Wyeth are wealthy Repub­li­cans enjoy­ing their lives in Palm Springs. Their chil­dren, Brooke and Trip, are at their par­ents’ place for Christ­mas for the first time in six years. Also stay­ing for Christ­mas is Pol­ly’s sis­ter Sil­da. She’s been in rehab. Every­thing seems to be going well (at least, as well as it could be) when Brooke tells her par­ents she’s writ­ten anoth­er book. Only this one isn’t a nov­el, it’s about her child­hood. There’s a secret in the fam­i­ly his­to­ry, and Lyman and Pol­ly don’t want it shared.

The script by Jon Robin Baitz is wordy and smart. There is ban­ter as well as small indi­ca­tors of the state of fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships all lead­ing to a dra­mat­ic end­ing. Direc­tor Ross Jol­ly has meld­ed a strong ensem­ble who use good Amer­i­can accents to bring the script to life. Jef­frey Thomas plays Lyman. He’s a man secure in his wealth and enjoy­ing his retire­ment. Thomas plays the lev­els of emo­tion over the per­for­mance very well. Cather­ine Downes cap­tures Pol­ly as the real pow­er in the fam­i­ly. She’s bright and breezy with a light­ness of touch that enclos­es a core of steel in the char­ac­ter. Brooke is played by Michelle Lang­stone. She shows the des­per­a­tion and emo­tion­al tur­moil of the char­ac­ter with exact­ing focus while at the same time seem­ing com­plete­ly nat­ur­al. Paul Wag­gott plays Trip. His char­ac­ter is the peace­mak­er in the fam­i­ly. Wag­gott makes the most of his scenes includ­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly affect­ing emo­tion­al reveal in one. Emma Kinane is Aunt Sil­da, per­haps the most like­able char­ac­ter — even though she’s on seri­ous med­ica­tion mak­ing her a bit woozy. Kinane is very good in the com­ic sec­tions. She is excel­lent in the sec­ond half when her char­ac­ter becomes less com­ic relief.

The set by John Hodgkins resem­bles a lux­u­ry home, all wood and stone. It’s beau­ti­ful­ly open and spare. It is well used by the cast who roam all over it although some of the audi­ence sight­lines are lost dur­ing the more pow­er­ful moments.

Out­stand­ing. Deserv­ing of large audi­ences.