Still, it’s hard to overstate the demonstrable force of an audience’s response to this work. Right from the Chicago premiere, there has been lively debate between those who see the play as a weighty and profound masterpiece of American familial dysfunction, fully worthy of comparison to “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” or “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” and those who see it more as a juicily entertaining pseudo-memoir and potboiler, more comparable to the work of Lillian Hellman or even Quentin Tarantino. A symphony of domestic violence ensues, conducted by the caustically manipulative Violet Weston, who knows how to reduce her hapless family to self-doubting blubber on the Plains. 9, is the semiautobiographical story of three adult, angst-laden sisters who return home to their pill-popping mother’s house of emotional horrors following the mysterious disappearance of their father, a sometime writer and constant drinker. “August: Osage County,” which premiered to critical acclaim in Chicago during the summer of 2007 and opens at the Ahmanson Theatre on Sept. Letts was happy to see some gung-ho fresh meat taking his play out west. Even though he knew where most of the bodies were buried in the infamously complex web of relationships - professional, romantic, always personal - that have been part of the Steppenwolf gestalt ever since Gary Sinise, Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney founded this most famous of Chicago theaters in 1974 and dragged it to fame, longevity and international acclaim by the sweat of their own ambition. “I really have to say,” Letts says over lunch, a devilish grin on his face, “I was kind of relieved not to be looking across the table at the same exhausted faces.”Įven though he had written his Pulitzer Prize-winning play especially for them. Although a few of the touring cast members - mostly notably, the widely acclaimed Estelle Parsons - had done the show as Broadway replacements during the long New York run, and many have ties to both Letts and other Chicago theaters, the famously dysfunctional Westons of Oklahoma are being played on the road by none of the original cast. His latest work is directed by Dexter Bullard, with scenic design by Tony Award winner Todd Rosenthal ( The Motherf**ker With the Hat), costume design by Lura Bauer and lighting by Marcus Doshi.Ĭombining playwright Letts’ keen eye for interpersonal relationships and points of transition with a stellar cast, Linda Vista at the Hayes Theater begins previews on September 19 2019, with opening night set for October 10.Jones is drama critic of the Chicago Tribune.ĬHICAGO - When playwright Tracy Letts walked into New York rehearsals for the touring production of his “August: Osage County” earlier this summer, he did not find the fellow Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble members who blew away brittle New York aesthetes with their gale-force, Chicago-style acting in Letts’ devastating Broadway play. As an actor, he won a Tony Award for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 2013. Playwright Letts is best known for the multi-award-winning August: Osage County, which was adapted into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Ewan McGregor. On Broadway, he is known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.īarford is joined by Sally Murphy ( August: Osage County, Caroline Neff ( The Flick), Chantal Thuy ( The Seagull) and Jim True-Frost (HBO’s The Wire). A long-time collaborator of Tracy Letts’, he originated the roles of Little Charles in August: Osage County and Ray in Mary Page Marlowe. As he navigates a mid-life crisis, a strange new dating scene, and keeping up with old friends, Wheeler faces one hell of a challenge: to square the man he is with the one he wants to become.Ĭasting for Linda Vista on Broadway includes Ian Barford as Wheeler. He moves out of his ex-wife’s garage into a place of his own, ready to embrace a new start… but things aren’t that simple. With 50 years, a divorce, and a lacklustre job to his name, things have to change. Wheeler has officially reached middle age. Applying his razor-sharp pen to one man’s brutally humorous mid-life crisis, Letts’ play is set to open at the Hayes Theater. Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts makes a triumphant return to Broadway with Linda Vista.
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