Like Serafina in The Rose Tattoo, Dick Wheeler, the misanthropic protagonist of Tracey Letts’s Linda Vista at Second Stage’s Hayes Theatre, is no picnic. He rails against Trump voters, all contemporary music and film (especially comic-book adaptations), and Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature as signs of cultural rot. Divorced and depressed over his failure as a photographer and husband and working at a dead-end job at age 50, Wheeler reluctantly reaches out for companionship with the outgoing Jules, a life coach (of course, he gets in a few cracks about her profession.) But unlike Serafina, he throws his chance for happiness away, rejecting Jules in favor of the emotionally unstable, much younger Minnie who is carrying the baby of her abusive ex-boyfriend. No big surprise that it all ends badly.
From the sound of him, you wouldn’t want to spend over two and a half hours in Wheeler’s company, but Letts skillfully shows us all the facets of this complex, compelling character so that we are never tempted to label him as a loser or treat him as an object of derision. Despite the protagonist’s self-destructive narcissism, Letts has created a moving character similar to Chekhov’s brooding heroes such as Uncle Vanya and Ivanov. The dialogue is funny without venturing into sitcom territory, exposing the the quirks of Wheeler and his circle without mocking them. Dexter Bullard’s direction gives us just the right combination of humorous snap and detail-laden pathos.
Ian Barford captures Wheeler’s self-loathing at the root of his grouchiness as well as the spark of joy he has not quite successfully extinguished. Cora Vander Broek makes a sturdy Jules and Chantal Thuy’s layered Minnie is much more than a toxic mess.Sally Murphy and Jim True-Frost truthfully expose the rifts in the marriage of Wheeler’s best friends while Caroline Neff and Troy West provide insight into his co-workers.
