EVISCERATING THE FAMILY FROM HELL Jon Robin Baitz was recognized early on in his career as the brightest and most promising playwright in the dog-eat-dog world of New York theatre. He then went west to helm the TV series Brothers and Sisters as principal writer. Seven years of absence from the boards did not cause him to lose his playwriting chops. In 2011 New York beckoned and Baitz bit hook, line and sinker, giving his latest play to Lincoln Center, where it had a good run before transferring to Broadway for yet another respectable outing. So, it was a great catch for Lynn Meyers’ Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, that OTHER DESERT CITIES was released by its agent for licensing outside the Big Apple, after it received all kinds of awards and Tony nominations and being on the short list for the Pulitzer. Now presenting this comedy-drama in its 191-seat space in Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine neighborhood, Ensemble Theatre helps eviscerate a family from hell with differing political views and a creepy skeleton in one of their walk-in closets. The “other desert cities” of the title are where the very Republican Wyeths (Dennis Parlato as Wyeth, Amy Warner as Polly) may be headed after a fateful Christmas in sunny Palm Springs, California. Their semi-empty nest is about to be further emptied and fouled by their fearsome progeny, and there’s nothing they can do to stop the impending catastrophe. Here’s daughter Brooke (Sara Mackie), home after a six-year semi-estrangement. There, in the opposite corner of the living-room-cum-boxing ring sits simmering, simpering Silda (Dale Hodges), an aunt just back from rehab. Also visiting home for the holidays is younger brother Trip (Ryan Wesley Gilreath), a successful TV producer but yet another unhappy Wyeth camper. It’s Christmas Eve and both living siblings are home with mom and dad and Auntie Sil…for old time’s sakes. Oh, by the way, Aunt Sil is a rabid liberal. Polly is like her hubby: a Republican. Trip is…like …nobody else in the family, politically-speaking. But everyone is just slightly to the immediate right or to the far left of Attila the Hun, only more vicious. Poisoned barbs on matters political are exchanged in this household like the badly-wrapped Christmas gifts that surround the tree in a corner of the room. Silda and Sis co-wrote a comedy series in the 1960’s. Sisterly bonds run deeper than black waters and the two old gals have enough laughing gas stored to keep us on the edge of the abyss. Brooke announces to her family that she has a good amount of material culled from their not-so-funny lives to fill her upcoming book of memoirs with all kinds of family secrets. These hushed-up goodies are related to the tragic death of the rarely-spoken-of younger brother Henry, years ago. It’s re-opening of wounds weekend at the Wyeths. Pass the sea-salt, please. Warner, Hodges and Mackie are three wonderful actresses at the top of their game, playing toxically nasty, lethally blunt and unforgiving members of the family you wish you never had. Gilreath as Trip is immensely effective as a successful man/naughty boy bundled with bad baggage and a weekend supply of top-grade pot. Dennis Parlato is perfect as a seemingly unflappable, oh-so-cool Reagan-like former B-movie actor who made good as an ambassador and bad as a father. His descent from a living page of Gentlemen’s Quarterly - designer whites at breakfast, ascot and a silk shirt in the evening - down to a broken, disheveled old man at the end of his rope just before night sets in is a lesson in what subtle and brilliant acting is all about. Lynn Meyers is a sharp director who knows how to coax and caress great acting from the regional pool of first-class Equity players, five of which are in her five-person cast. Her production is impeccable, with a spot-on 1980’s living room set by the ever-imaginative Brian C. Mehring, who also lights the show in a way that keeps the Palm Beach sunshine out of the claustrophobic Wyeth microcosm. The costumes by Reba Senske are humorously accurate, reminding us how profoundly tacky the 1980’s were, Gucci, Pucci or knock-off. And then there’s Jon Robin Baitz. He’s unflinching and fully in command of the way we talk to and at each other, using language as weaponry. More than that, he’s masterful at eliciting deliciously-inappropriate laughter at the angst and agonies of upper-middle-America and he’s in the same leagues as an O’Neill or an Albee in this harrowing dissection of a family that has already collapsed on their downward spiral from morn at the Country Club to night in a domestic graveyard for desolate souls. Other Desert Cities runs through September22 at the Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati. Visit ensemblecincinnati.org for more information. Rafael de Acha
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:07:12 +0000
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