Linda Vista is a character study of Dick Wheeler (Ian Barford), a 50-year-old man who is in the throes of a divorce. Not only has his marriage failed but so has his fatherhood and his body. He free wheels between women, beautiful Jules, excellently portrayed by Cora Vander Broek, and 26-year-old Minnie (Chantal Thuy), a Vietnamese rocker with pink hair. Both his first and last names have obvious meaning for his role. He sabotages every relationship as he fears success and other than superficial bonds and easy sex while his world view is beautiful, thus the ironic title of the play.
Tracy Letts, playwright (August: Osage County and Superior Donuts), is a master portrayer of the dysfunctional family and human connections. Despite Wheeler's self-destructive actions, the play is a comedy. There are many laugh-out-loud scenes and lines as an aging man tries to recreate his life having learned little or nothing about his motivations and failures. This is a Steppenwolf production from Chicago, with many of the same principals. Barford is outstanding as are his friends Paul (Jim True-Frost) and his wife Margaret (Sally Murphy), the only notes of realism in Wheeler's world. Minnie is the weak link swallowing many of her lines as a user-loser neighbor who sinks into her own self-imposed miseries. The play ends with the audience wondering if Wheeler will ever regain the status he held as a photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times or devolve into another abyss with his coworker Anita (Caroline Neff) and wheel into yet another fruitless, inappropriate relationship.
This was a rich evening of a study of a l pessimistic life tinged with irony and the viewer's annoyance both at the stupidity of the world and the play's stupid-smart protagonist.
There was a post-production discussion with director Dexter Bullard, who gave audience members insights into some of the show's technical and professional problems with the numerous settings, interpretation of characters, and their sex scenes. read more