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In Jon Robin Baitz's funny, explosive and entertaining look at unruly family politics (a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize), the manicured life of an actor-turned-politician and his impeccable wife is upset when relatives arrive at their Palm Springs home for the holidays — including daughter Brooke who’s about to publish a tell-all memoir.
As in all desert lands, mirage can transfix and trick the inhabitants. As the heat gives way, reality comes into sharp and unrelenting focus. Perception and reality grapple with love and mercy as old family wounds are opened, childhood memories are tested and the Wyeth clan ...Read More
In Jon Robin Baitz's funny, explosive and entertaining look at unruly family politics (a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize), the manicured life of an actor-turned-politician and his impeccable wife is upset when relatives arrive at their Palm Springs home for the holidays — including daughter Brooke who’s about to publish a tell-all memoir.
As in all desert lands, mirage can transfix and trick the inhabitants. As the heat gives way, reality comes into sharp and unrelenting focus. Perception and reality grapple with love and mercy as old family wounds are opened, childhood memories are tested and the Wyeth clan learns that some secrets cannot stay buried forever.
“I wondered about the hubris in the act of writing about people who are actually living, and I thought so many people do this and so few people get to respond to it really,” explained Baitz in an interview. “There are so many great memoirs and they're also absolutely unreliable in the fundamental sense. It came from my sense of trying to either expiate or make sense of my life as a writer up until now and the potential damage that I've been party to or done.”
The play’s title refers to a roadside sign on the eastbound I-10 that directs drivers to exit at Palm Springs, Calif., or head on to “other desert cities.”
Other Desert Cities runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., June 6 through June 29. Two preview performances take place on Wednesday, June 4 and Thursday, June 5 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $42 on Thursdays and $47 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, except opening night (June 6) for which tickets are $52 and include a post-performance reception with the actors. International City Theatre is located in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center at 300 E. Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach, CA 90802. For reservations and information, call the ICT Box Office at 562-436-4610 or www.InternationalCityTheatre.org.
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