Essay Questions

Why don't Lyman and Polly want Brooke to publish her memoir about her brother?

Brooke has written a book, her memoir about her brother Henry's suicide after being a part of a bombing that killed a man. She outs her parents as being the reason he became the way he was, radical. But, we learn that Lyman and Polly have secretly helped Henry to escape the country and crafted a suicide note with him in order to make the authorities believe he is dead so they will stop searching for him. If Brooke publishes a book, her brother will be brought back into the limelight, his picture will be everywhere and people may recognize him, wherever he is in the world and turn him in. This is why they don't want her to publish her book.

What is the significance of Polly and Lyman being Republicans in the play?

Lyman and Polly worked in Hollywood, he was an actor and she a screenwriter. They both left the business and began to live a life of politics, Lyman ascending to high rank in the GOP. What is significant about their being strong Republicans (friends with the Reagans) is that they carry on with party beliefs to the public, but internally they are not the people they semi-regularly frequent who are all about their party. No, they are parents who love their children, their country, and are willing to pay a great price in order to protect both, which includes deeply strained relationships with their daughter Brooke.

What is the significance of the play being set in Palm Springs?

Palm Springs is now considered a retirement community where many of the showbiz elite used to play. It is a desert. Thus, the significance of it is that nothing grows here, and this relates to Lyman and Polly and their relationships specifically to Brooke and Silda. Their secret about helping Henry escape has caused them to live far away from the limelight in order to protect him for however long it takes so that he will have a life. They have given up their lives, which were once red hot in Los Angeles in order to brisk to cold nights of the desert air. All for family.