The stage is a scuffed square in the middle of a black-painted room. Rows of chairs rise around it, bleacher-style, on all four sides. No curtains or fancy sets divide those watching the action from the action itself. This is the Vortex, Albuquerque’s highly regarded community theater now in its 36th year—and, as it happens, a fitting home for the stripped-down intimacy of Anton Chekhov’s classic drama-comedy, The Seagull.

This is no spoiler: “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.” An ambassador from England announces this at the end of Hamlet and this masterpiece from Tom Stoppard. Anyone who is familiar with Hamlet or has even read the title of Stoppard's classic absurdist drama has a pretty good idea of where they play's action is headed. Even the protagonists, at various turns in the story, know they're going to die, though they either forget or willfully ignore the information upon receiving it every time.

From the first rise of the curtain, expect to be captivated by Other Desert Cities. The new play by New York playwright Jon Robin Baitz wastes no time drawing the audience in.