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Onstage Other Desert Cities

We romanticize the holidays, but they’re often not happy reunions. That’s certainly the case in Jon Robin Baitz’s 2011 play Other Desert Cities about the Wyeth family’s 2004 Christmastim

By Rick Pender on Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 2:34 pm

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(L to R) Sara Mackie and Dale Hodges in Other Desert Cities

We romanticize the holidays, but they’re often not happy reunions. That’s certainly the case in Jon Robin Baitz’s 2011 play Other Desert Cities about the Wyeth family’s 2004 Christmastime gathering in Southern California.

Conservative parents and adult children not living up to expectations aren’t a good mix, and when the imminent publication of daughter Brooke’s tell-all memoir about her antiwar activist brother’s suicide becomes the focal point, well, it’s a tinder box of explosive emotions.

Ensemble Theatre has assembled a stellar cast, including local favorites Amy Warner and Dale Hodges. A dramatic kickoff for ETC’s season.

Through Sept. 22. $39-$43. Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, 1127 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, 513-421-3555, ensemblecincinnati.org.

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