Washington Post - Recommended
"...Enhanced immensely by the riveting performances of Larry Bryggman, Helen Carey and Emily Donahoe as Lyman, Polly and daughter Brooke, "Other Desert Cities" leaves you a little drained, in the way that bracing theater can act as a stealthy purgative. The most surprising outcome here might be any spectator unmoved by the final gusts of anguish from Bryggman, in his remarkable turn as Lyman- a suffering quietly echoed in Donahoe's expertly muffled gasps."
Washington Examiner - Highly Recommended
"...In the skillful hands of director Kyle Donnelly, the production moves swiftly. Carey is superb as the suave, well-dressed Polly, who learned most of what she knows about surviving life from Nancy Reagan. Donahoe's Brooke is a well-grounded, balanced character who is as open about her nervous breakdown as she is opposed to the whole idea of California."
WeLoveDC - Highly Recommended
"...Other Desert Cities is a firefight that will have you ducking for cover yet peeking around the corner so you don't miss a moment of action on stage. A hairpin turn later in the show will turn what notions you may have on its head so make sure you buckle your seatbelt and hold on tight: this show is one hell of a ride."
Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended
"...On the surface, Jon Robin Baitz's play Other Desert Cities is about political and personal conflict within a prominent family, but-as well staged at Washington's Arena Stage by five fine performers and director Kyle Donnelly-it's also about how one person can never really know the secrets of another."
Washington City Paper - Recommended
"...The rest of the cast is fantastic, however, and Baitz is a brilliant writer who carries wordplay as far as he can. Almost too far when it comes to the Reagan puns. But it's Christmas Eve in this household, and even in Palm Springs, a chill will soon fall over the desert. When the family settles in for a long winter's chat, be prepared for a tears and a resolution that may weaken even those most cynical of theatergoing hearts."
Washingtonian - Highly Recommended
"...The toxic stew of long-buried family secrets, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, barbed endearments, and bourbon that festers in Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities-currently having its local premiere at Arena Stage-is the kind of grim but enthralling mix that makes for gut-punching theater, in which the "indentured servitude of having a family" is put under a microscopic lens. As Arundhati Roy once put it, the trouble with families is that, "like invidious doctors, they [know] just where it hurts.""
BrightestYoungThings - Recommended
"..."Other Desert Cities'" corner of the Arena Stage website fairly describes it as an "insightful comedy-drama," but it's worth noting that each of those descriptors are nearly mutually exclusive. At its most insightful (parts of the first half), "Other Desert Cities" portrays the absurdly entangled mechanisms and relationships that comprise and compromise any family; at its most comedic (the other parts of the first half) the foundation for the absurdity of the Bluth parody is apparent; at its most dramatic (the second half), the plotline suddenly takes off and it's just... really dramatic. Like, really.dramatic."
Washington Blade - Highly Recommended
"...Absorbing, witty and zinger-filled (directed at the unfashionably dressed and neocons alike), Baitz’s script is supported by smart staging and good design. Director Kyle Donnelly maintains intimacy in Arena’s big Fichlander theater in-the-round space (but unfortunately some dialogue is garbled when actors inevitably must turn their backs to sections of the audience); and Kate Edmund’s set — the expansive living room of a mid-century, desert showplace complete with faux stone bar and sunken circular fireplace — establishes the older Wyeth’s way of life at a glance."
The Georgetowner - Somewhat Recommended
"...In this two-hour play, there’s one more cat to come out of the bag. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve been hearing soft meows all along. It’s a manipulative kind of plotting—smart by way too much, and it could have derailed the play. But by that time, Bryggman, Carey, Donahoe, Drummond and Hackett have given you too many reasons to give a damn about the people on stage."
MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended
"...Jon Robin Baitz's Tony Award winning play Other Desert Cities is one of those plays that upon first viewing in NYC I said "Wow!!" I found it to be extremely well acted and really well written. The story is very dramatic, as it explores what happens when a child, who has had a breakdown, comes home to Palm Springs for Christmas after completing a novel exposing her family's dirty laundry, and what she says caused her brother to commit suicide. The production currently playing at Arena Stage still has Baitz's fantastic script and good physical elements, but somehow-with few exceptions-it doesn't match the original cast acting wise and what was dramatic on Broadway comes off as melodramatic in this version."
Huffington Post - Recommended
"...Directed by Helen Hayes Award winner Kyle Donnelly and written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Jon Robin Baitz, Other Desert Cities keeps the audience questioning: Who do you trust? Are there causes worth killing -- or dying -- for? How far can a parent-child relationship be stretched before it's irrevocably broken?"
DCTheatreScene - Recommended
Other Desert Cities — a good, but not great play — aims for the pedestal where Arthur Miller and Edward Albee sit; it joins a long, distinguished list of dramatic work that picks at the messiness of familial relationships, and fits snugly in with the contemporary variant of the type through the (over)use of caustic one-liners and the inevitable devastating secret rushing to meet us at the climax.
