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Linda Vista
"A playwright with talent, nerve and something to say . . . a finely tuned ear and eye for the hidden―and not always noble―calibrations of the human heart." ―Jay Reiner, The Hollywood Reporter "Letts is a keen observer of the way the past oozes into the present and future. And while each of his characters has a vivid identity, each also has a dozen richly contradictory aspects to his or her nature. . . . The playwright also serves up some blackly comic laughs, too, just to clear the air from time to time."―Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times At fifty years old, Wheeler is moving into an apartment of his own. Divorce and a dead-end job leave him faced with the challenge of building a brand new life as a middle-aged man. Wheeler's hilarious, tangled journey in Linda Vista is punctuated with complications, both painful and joyful, as he forges a new path. With a deftly crafted blend of humor and humanity, Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright Tracy Letts demonstrates the ultimate midlife the bewildering search for self-discovery once you've already grown up. Tracy Letts is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright and actor. His works include Osage County, Mary Page Marlowe, Superior Donuts, The Man from Nebraska, Killer Joe , and Bug , among others.
- GenresPlays
Paperback
Published January 12, 2018
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About the author
Tracy Letts
15 books241 followersTracy Letts is an American playwright and actor who received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play August: Osage County.
Letts was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to best-selling author Billie Letts, of Where The Heart Is and The Honk And Holler Opening Soon fame, and the late college professor and actor Dennis Letts. His brother Shawn is a jazz musician and composer. He also has a brother Dana. Letts was raised in Durant, Oklahoma and graduated from Durant High School in the early 1980s. He moved to Dallas, where he waited tables and worked in telemarketing while starting as an actor. He acted in Jerry Flemmons' O Dammit!, which was part of a new playwrights series sponsored by Southern Methodist University.
Letts moved to Chicago at the age of 20, and worked for the next 11 years at Steppenwolf and Famous Door. He's still an active member of the Steppenwolf company today. He was a founding member of Bang Bang Spontaneous Theater, whose members included Greg Kotis (Tony Award-winner for Urinetown), Michael Shannon (Academy Award-nominee for Revolutionary Road), Paul Dillon, and Amy Pietz. In 1991, Letts wrote the play Killer Joe. Two years later, the play premiered at the Next Lab Theater in Chicago, followed by the 29th Street Rep in NYC. Since then, Killer Joe has been performed in at least 15 countries in 12 languages.
In 2008, Letts won a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for August: Osage County. It had premiered in Chicago in 2007, before moving to New York. It opened on Broadway in 2007 and ran into 2009.
His mother Billie Letts has said of his writing, "I try to be upbeat and funny. Everybody in Tracy's stories gets naked or dead." Letts' plays have been about people struggling with moral and spiritual questions. He says he was inspired by the plays of Tennessee Williams and the novels of William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. Letts considers sound to be a very strong storytelling tool for theater.
Letts was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to best-selling author Billie Letts, of Where The Heart Is and The Honk And Holler Opening Soon fame, and the late college professor and actor Dennis Letts. His brother Shawn is a jazz musician and composer. He also has a brother Dana. Letts was raised in Durant, Oklahoma and graduated from Durant High School in the early 1980s. He moved to Dallas, where he waited tables and worked in telemarketing while starting as an actor. He acted in Jerry Flemmons' O Dammit!, which was part of a new playwrights series sponsored by Southern Methodist University.
Letts moved to Chicago at the age of 20, and worked for the next 11 years at Steppenwolf and Famous Door. He's still an active member of the Steppenwolf company today. He was a founding member of Bang Bang Spontaneous Theater, whose members included Greg Kotis (Tony Award-winner for Urinetown), Michael Shannon (Academy Award-nominee for Revolutionary Road), Paul Dillon, and Amy Pietz. In 1991, Letts wrote the play Killer Joe. Two years later, the play premiered at the Next Lab Theater in Chicago, followed by the 29th Street Rep in NYC. Since then, Killer Joe has been performed in at least 15 countries in 12 languages.
In 2008, Letts won a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for August: Osage County. It had premiered in Chicago in 2007, before moving to New York. It opened on Broadway in 2007 and ran into 2009.
His mother Billie Letts has said of his writing, "I try to be upbeat and funny. Everybody in Tracy's stories gets naked or dead." Letts' plays have been about people struggling with moral and spiritual questions. He says he was inspired by the plays of Tennessee Williams and the novels of William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. Letts considers sound to be a very strong storytelling tool for theater.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 27, 2021
4.5, rounded down.
One of the things I like most about Letts as a playwright is that he never repeats himself; each of his plays seems like it's the work of a separate writer, but all of them are astonishingly good. So it is with his latest effort, a disarming comedy about a rather despicable man's mid-life crisis, that contains one of the funniest - and most honest - post-coital scenes in all of theatre.
One of the things I like most about Letts as a playwright is that he never repeats himself; each of his plays seems like it's the work of a separate writer, but all of them are astonishingly good. So it is with his latest effort, a disarming comedy about a rather despicable man's mid-life crisis, that contains one of the funniest - and most honest - post-coital scenes in all of theatre.
May 13, 2022
Not going to lie, I read this book for a class assignment, and I wanted to chuck it out a window by the end. While the play was meant to display a fifty-year-old man's mid-life crisis, it felt like his mid-life crisis was an excuse for the character to be sexist and overall completely unlikeable. All the female characters are one-dimensional and exist solely for his growth.
July 11, 2021
Not since Jules Feiffer’s “Carnal Knowledge” have I read a dramatic work that attacks toxic masculinity without apology.
My favorite Letts play since “August: Osage County.
My favorite Letts play since “August: Osage County.
December 7, 2022
This play was not what I expected of Letts. It moves around, every scene distinct in setting, and it lacks the great twist and the jam-packed final scene of both Killer Joe and August: Osage County. I had gotten familiar with the same-set play and the ripping ending, so Linda Vista’s ambiguity and constant motion was rather a shock. What do they serve to do? Perhaps Letts’ closeness to Wheeler in their age (and assumed search for meaning?) catches him from damning his protagonist like the other plays I’ve read. Perhaps the changing of set captures the constant progression from momentary flash-in-the-pan moments and dull areas of conflict and despair, then repeat. Let us for a moment discuss the dialogue. Killer Joe’s was short and hazy, in a swirl because of the lack of neat characterization that the final scene forces. Given the wholly odd nature of the characters, the dialogue feels unrealistic, not in a jarring way, but rather in one that establishes the nightmarish, hazy sequence of events. August: Osage County was similarly curt, but it showed Letts’ progression to more modern vernacular, containing more self-reflection and more developed characters whose complexity rises not out of the confusion of their actions but rather the mixed bag of sentiments they express. Linda Vista’s dialogue is the most recognizable of the three, especially in the Wheeler/Paul conversations. Margaret is vivid and cutting; Wheeler is self-destructionary and witty. All of them talk incredibly accurately to relational adult conversations, but in seeking to slice realism out of a whorling life, significance in the dialogue is lost. This is not a play of structural meaning, nor does it deeply disturb or attach. Wheeler is understandable if not likeable, and Paul and Margaret provide areas for sympathy indeed, but because the play is less a moral or thematic examination of middle age and more the realistic depiction of one man’s struggle with the significance clumsily shoehorned in, it is less grand than the other works of Letts I’ve read. Still, this is based on prior expectation. Perhaps I can be content that Linda Vista functions primarily as an accurate peephole and secondarily as a thing of deeper significance.
Absent the usual illustrative blocking of Letts’ tense showpieces, Wheeler’s emotions and pauses become the focal point of stage direction in Linda Vista. His pauses and breakdowns are often as a result of his powerful intellect getting cowed by the emotion of him or others. His stymied photography career is something interesting, but it is fouled by its overfocus at the end. Given Wheeler’s self-destructive tendencies, his picking up of the camera again only to photograph the sexually objectified Anita seems a defeat of the phoenix-rise that powers his post-Jules scenes. But is it defeating after all? In all actuality, his final conversation with Margaret and his clumsy attempts to regain the heart of Jules are not actually steps forward, but steps deeper backward into the swirling mess of his much-bemoaned life. His lack of care for others can be construed as a fogging of gaze by this very mess. Wheeler does not seem to be completely bad; his emotions at the story of the Greek girl and his spilling to Anita in the final scene are touching, and the audience must at least have pity on him for his helplessness. Perhaps his hip is one of the few properly understated illustrative symbols of the piece: Wheeler is still capable with his crippledness, as demonstrated by the squash game, but shows his limp more and more throughout the disintegrating story.
WHEELER: Anything’s an improvement over the cot in my wife’s garage. My kid looking out there in the morning like, “Who’s the loser sleeping in the garage? Oh that’s right, it’s my dad.”
WHEELER: I mean nobody wants to see me limping around the pool in my shorts, with my bum hip and gray chest hair. I’ve got middle-age desperation written all over me. I don’t mean now, I mean that’s the reason I haven’t gone out to the pool.
WHEELER: I had a gift for documentary portraiture, but my gift was precocious, it didn’t develop, as we say in photography. There’s enough mediocrity in the world, I didn’t need to throw my pictures on the pile. It’s not a great mystery. Life is mostly disappointing.
ANITA: State of mind.
MINNIE: Kids like it, it’s for kids.
WHEELER: So now all we’re supposed to watch is shit made for kids. Fuck your kids. Bunch of allergic autistic mole rats. When I was a kid, movies were made ofr adults. Kids got The Apple Dumpling Gang and we felt lucky to get it. And here’s a secret, it’s not for kids, it’s for adult men who can’t read. An entire generation of illiterate, infantilized, boy-men.
(Minnie receives a text, reads it.)
WHEELER: Why are you so angry?
MARGARET: Your contrary nature. You can’t enjoy anything unless it’s your discovery.
WHEELER: That’s inaccurate—
MARGARET: And how dare you say we wouldn’t make good parents. How dare you. A lot goes into a choice like that, you understand? Things you don’t know cause they’re none of your business.
JULES: You have a strong point of view. And the ability to articulate it. That’s impressive.
WHEELER: Thank you.
JULES: But it’s more fun to like things.
(Wheeler can’t argue.)
WHEELER: I was standing at the end of a long aisle between rows of hospital beds with sick children. And at the other end of the aisle I saw this little girl, a patient. She saw me, and broke into a huge smile, and went into a dead run, right for me. (Chokes up) And I bent down and she threw her arms open and I opened my arms and scooped her up and held her. There’s no explanation for it, we didn’t talk. Nurse came in and took her from me and I took that picture…I’ve been sad for a while…and I feel good with you.
…(Minnie stands outside, holding a laundry basket heaped with her stuff.)
WHEELER: Pregnant rockabilly girl. The baby is a factor.
PAUL: It is? You want to have a baby?
WHEELER: I might. Paul, I may be in love.
WHEELER: You don’t think I should marry Jules.
PAUL: I don’t think that either. I think that if you marry Jules, then that’s the thing you will have done.
(Wheeler is speechless.)
MARGARET: I could care less about debating that with you. I’m not interested in your ideas. And you certainly know me well enough to know I’m no prude. Anyway, you’re a fifty-year-old man, you make your own choices about the things and people you value. But Gabe is fourteen years old.
WHEELER: Now I’m angry. Gabe is none of your business.
MARGARET: Apparently he’s none of yours either.
(Silence.)
WHEELER: I love you.
MINNIE: Let go! Let go of me!...I am a person and I say what I do.
JULES: Y’know, that question, what is photography. I’ve had a lot of time now to think of a good answer. You know what I think it is? A photograph is a catalyst for seeing beyond yourself. And by that definition, I finally have to agree with you that you’re probably not very good at it.
ANITA: I need to get my shit together. I’ve been putting off the decision for a long time but I want to go back to school. I blamed the schools for a long time but the problem hasn’t been the schools. It’s me.
WHEELER: How is it you?
ANITA: (Considers, then): Fear. I…I have a lot of fear.
(He nods in agreement. He wants to speak. He weeps.)
Absent the usual illustrative blocking of Letts’ tense showpieces, Wheeler’s emotions and pauses become the focal point of stage direction in Linda Vista. His pauses and breakdowns are often as a result of his powerful intellect getting cowed by the emotion of him or others. His stymied photography career is something interesting, but it is fouled by its overfocus at the end. Given Wheeler’s self-destructive tendencies, his picking up of the camera again only to photograph the sexually objectified Anita seems a defeat of the phoenix-rise that powers his post-Jules scenes. But is it defeating after all? In all actuality, his final conversation with Margaret and his clumsy attempts to regain the heart of Jules are not actually steps forward, but steps deeper backward into the swirling mess of his much-bemoaned life. His lack of care for others can be construed as a fogging of gaze by this very mess. Wheeler does not seem to be completely bad; his emotions at the story of the Greek girl and his spilling to Anita in the final scene are touching, and the audience must at least have pity on him for his helplessness. Perhaps his hip is one of the few properly understated illustrative symbols of the piece: Wheeler is still capable with his crippledness, as demonstrated by the squash game, but shows his limp more and more throughout the disintegrating story.
WHEELER: Anything’s an improvement over the cot in my wife’s garage. My kid looking out there in the morning like, “Who’s the loser sleeping in the garage? Oh that’s right, it’s my dad.”
WHEELER: I mean nobody wants to see me limping around the pool in my shorts, with my bum hip and gray chest hair. I’ve got middle-age desperation written all over me. I don’t mean now, I mean that’s the reason I haven’t gone out to the pool.
WHEELER: I had a gift for documentary portraiture, but my gift was precocious, it didn’t develop, as we say in photography. There’s enough mediocrity in the world, I didn’t need to throw my pictures on the pile. It’s not a great mystery. Life is mostly disappointing.
ANITA: State of mind.
MINNIE: Kids like it, it’s for kids.
WHEELER: So now all we’re supposed to watch is shit made for kids. Fuck your kids. Bunch of allergic autistic mole rats. When I was a kid, movies were made ofr adults. Kids got The Apple Dumpling Gang and we felt lucky to get it. And here’s a secret, it’s not for kids, it’s for adult men who can’t read. An entire generation of illiterate, infantilized, boy-men.
(Minnie receives a text, reads it.)
WHEELER: Why are you so angry?
MARGARET: Your contrary nature. You can’t enjoy anything unless it’s your discovery.
WHEELER: That’s inaccurate—
MARGARET: And how dare you say we wouldn’t make good parents. How dare you. A lot goes into a choice like that, you understand? Things you don’t know cause they’re none of your business.
JULES: You have a strong point of view. And the ability to articulate it. That’s impressive.
WHEELER: Thank you.
JULES: But it’s more fun to like things.
(Wheeler can’t argue.)
WHEELER: I was standing at the end of a long aisle between rows of hospital beds with sick children. And at the other end of the aisle I saw this little girl, a patient. She saw me, and broke into a huge smile, and went into a dead run, right for me. (Chokes up) And I bent down and she threw her arms open and I opened my arms and scooped her up and held her. There’s no explanation for it, we didn’t talk. Nurse came in and took her from me and I took that picture…I’ve been sad for a while…and I feel good with you.
…(Minnie stands outside, holding a laundry basket heaped with her stuff.)
WHEELER: Pregnant rockabilly girl. The baby is a factor.
PAUL: It is? You want to have a baby?
WHEELER: I might. Paul, I may be in love.
WHEELER: You don’t think I should marry Jules.
PAUL: I don’t think that either. I think that if you marry Jules, then that’s the thing you will have done.
(Wheeler is speechless.)
MARGARET: I could care less about debating that with you. I’m not interested in your ideas. And you certainly know me well enough to know I’m no prude. Anyway, you’re a fifty-year-old man, you make your own choices about the things and people you value. But Gabe is fourteen years old.
WHEELER: Now I’m angry. Gabe is none of your business.
MARGARET: Apparently he’s none of yours either.
(Silence.)
WHEELER: I love you.
MINNIE: Let go! Let go of me!...I am a person and I say what I do.
JULES: Y’know, that question, what is photography. I’ve had a lot of time now to think of a good answer. You know what I think it is? A photograph is a catalyst for seeing beyond yourself. And by that definition, I finally have to agree with you that you’re probably not very good at it.
ANITA: I need to get my shit together. I’ve been putting off the decision for a long time but I want to go back to school. I blamed the schools for a long time but the problem hasn’t been the schools. It’s me.
WHEELER: How is it you?
ANITA: (Considers, then): Fear. I…I have a lot of fear.
(He nods in agreement. He wants to speak. He weeps.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 8, 2022
It's increasingly hard for me to overcome my bias against any story starring a middle aged white guy. There's just so many of them, any time a new one lumbers into view I expect it to justify its existence. Linda Vista does quite a bit to overcome that bias, but I don't know if it's quite enough. The wreckage of Wheeler's life is so clearly a result of his refusal to imagine other people complexly, his attempts to fix it are so woefully inadequate, and the characters around him are so unrelentingly critical of his choices that it's clear the playwright understands the game he's playing. Letts clearly isn't using Wheeler as some self-insert to exhibit his foibles and elicit sympathy, but instead exploring the conditions of contemporary American masculinity through Wheeler as a character. As a man himself, clearly Letts has dealt with these conditions in his own life, but this isn't a therapy session. It's a play, and a well-written play.
But is that enough? I don't know, not for me. I just can't stop myself from asking "why?" Why is Wheeler still at the center? Why are we still seeing his story? I'm reminded of the line from A Serious Man: "Oh, I can see that it's subtle, clever. But at the end of the day, is it convincing?" White, middle-aged men don't listen to anyone other than other white, middle-aged men, and it leads them to ruin their lives and raise another generation of fucked up white men. Okay, got it. And?
Maybe I'm being too flippant, or too dour. I like Letts, both as an actor and a writer. This one just didn't land for me.
But is that enough? I don't know, not for me. I just can't stop myself from asking "why?" Why is Wheeler still at the center? Why are we still seeing his story? I'm reminded of the line from A Serious Man: "Oh, I can see that it's subtle, clever. But at the end of the day, is it convincing?" White, middle-aged men don't listen to anyone other than other white, middle-aged men, and it leads them to ruin their lives and raise another generation of fucked up white men. Okay, got it. And?
Maybe I'm being too flippant, or too dour. I like Letts, both as an actor and a writer. This one just didn't land for me.
November 7, 2020
Tracy Letts has a unique talent for creating credible, realistic characters. Their dialogue is equally candid and believable.
April 28, 2021
Tracy Letts, man - his plays never fail to be incredible. I might have to buy a copy now, because there is so much I want to go back and highlight/underline.
Some gems, although out-of-context:
"I have had it with the deathbed. We burn a lot of fuel thinking about the deathbed. How long do you plan to spend on your deathbed? A day, a week? Maybe a couple months, at most. You got a whole lifetime before you get to the deathbed. Maybe live your life the way you want and just accept that the deathbed is not going to be the high point. You’re all alone on your deathbed? Cheer up, you’re about to die."
"Grab whatever happiness you can. Whether it’s a day or a week. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. You’ll fuck it up, whatever you do. Maybe Minnie promised she’d hurt you because she’s smart enough to know it’s all gonna get fucked up regardless. Cause no matter what you do, we’ll all be on the deathbed eventually, whether we have company or not."
"Y’know, when people are actually holding a gun to your head, I don’t think they ask questions like that, like, 'Was it worth it, marrying Paul?'"
WHEELER: I fucked it up, something good in my life. I don’t know why. But I regret it so much. I do love you. And I believe you love me too.
JULES: It doesn’t matter.
WHEELER: Why is that?
JULES: Because I respect myself.
"If you ever want to know how pathetic you are, have somebody list the contents of your pantry."
Some gems, although out-of-context:
"I have had it with the deathbed. We burn a lot of fuel thinking about the deathbed. How long do you plan to spend on your deathbed? A day, a week? Maybe a couple months, at most. You got a whole lifetime before you get to the deathbed. Maybe live your life the way you want and just accept that the deathbed is not going to be the high point. You’re all alone on your deathbed? Cheer up, you’re about to die."
"Grab whatever happiness you can. Whether it’s a day or a week. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. You’ll fuck it up, whatever you do. Maybe Minnie promised she’d hurt you because she’s smart enough to know it’s all gonna get fucked up regardless. Cause no matter what you do, we’ll all be on the deathbed eventually, whether we have company or not."
"Y’know, when people are actually holding a gun to your head, I don’t think they ask questions like that, like, 'Was it worth it, marrying Paul?'"
WHEELER: I fucked it up, something good in my life. I don’t know why. But I regret it so much. I do love you. And I believe you love me too.
JULES: It doesn’t matter.
WHEELER: Why is that?
JULES: Because I respect myself.
"If you ever want to know how pathetic you are, have somebody list the contents of your pantry."
September 21, 2022
Letts at his most pervy. His most skeevy. His age is showing. The men are slimy and the women are treated like shit. The whole thing made me wanna take a shower and physically remove the experience of this off of me. It's like a spiritual sequel, and darker take on mid-life, to Man From Nebraska. My least favorite of the Letts body of work (seaux far). It's gross and sickening, and far less funny to me than the others. The humor lost its teeth, became meaner. Oof.
August 28, 2023
Is this what Tracy Letts comes up with after outstanding plays like Osage County, Bugs, Killer Joe, etc?
I'm truly disappointed. A play that was supposed to be a comedy about mid-life crisis but fails miserably on both fronts.
A bunch of one-dimensional characters that their political banter is superficial at best.
Very disappointed.
I'm truly disappointed. A play that was supposed to be a comedy about mid-life crisis but fails miserably on both fronts.
A bunch of one-dimensional characters that their political banter is superficial at best.
Very disappointed.
Read
November 3, 2019The Helen Hayes Theater
Directed by Dexter Bullard
Ian Barford
Sally Murphy
Carolyn Neff
Chantal Thuy
Jim True-Frost
Cora Vander Broek
Troy West
Directed by Dexter Bullard
Ian Barford
Sally Murphy
Carolyn Neff
Chantal Thuy
Jim True-Frost
Cora Vander Broek
Troy West
March 15, 2021
Really intense character study of a fifty-year-old trying to start his life over again.
April 22, 2021
A solid piece of theater. Letts does not disappoint in creating real characters that you can feel their pain, anguish and yearning.
I highly enjoyed his writing and the play’s arc.
I highly enjoyed his writing and the play’s arc.
November 27, 2021
I saw the recent Broadway production of this and it was terrific. Funny, acidic, sad. Letts knows how to reveal character through dialogue and this play is no exception.
December 15, 2024
Well written as usual by Tracy. Just lacked as much of a twist or as good a story as his usual work. Still good but didn’t have me enthralled as his other plays.
December 19, 2020
There were a few laugh out loud moments and a couple of surprises. But overall, it was difficult to feel any empathy for Wheeler. Fifty years old and still tragically selfish, his redemption at the end is too little, too late.
October 31, 2020
A curmudgeonly man in his 50s with a fucked up life, fucks it up even more in this charming and funny new play by Tracy Letts. There is a glimmer of hope that Wheeler will get his act together as we look in on his new life as he gets a divorce and navigates life on his own as he ages. At times out right hysterical, it's also a deeply moving piece and brilliantly put together by Letts!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews