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Robert Massimi A MISANTHROPE
W
heeler (Ian Barford) is too young to be called a curmudgeon, so we will call him a misanthrope. He is a man who life has passed by, and why not, as he never really thought about his life to begin with. A former photographer who is now a camera repair man, he had heaps of accolades thrust upon him for his great pictures, yet he discounts others’ opinions about his work. Although we never know why he actually quit being a photographer (the paper he worked at in Chicago cut its staff), we can surmise that it has to do with his aloofness toward life, his deep down hatred towards it. Or it could be that the birth of his son Gabe threw him into life’s tailspin. Tracy Letts never fully explains the turmoil in Wheeler’s life, he only dabbled in it.
54 | MetMagNY.com | 25AMagazine.com
THEATER REVIEW BY BOB MASSISI In a funny play that is, at times, downright raucous, Wheeler professes his philosophies about life. He is a matter-of-fact type of guy; he say’s what comes to his mind and he never holds back. Not a stupid man, Wheeler knows his strengths and weaknesses; his past and present. An affair killed his marriage, but his marriage was over the day his thirteen-year-old son was born. A mystery in Linda Vista, the boy is never brought deeply into the play until late in the show, and even that was a weak effort at trying to figure out Jim Wheeler and his son’s relationship. Linda Vista has many skits to it: the comedy and scenes are broken apart. In the first scene, Wheeler goes into a political rage, and although I dislike all the Trump stuff on Broadway, this was actually funny. Barford brings intensity and believability to his comedy. Steadfast in his beliefs
for the full two hours and forty minutes, Barford works hard throughout the performance, and as such, he is excellent in his role. The entire cast does a magnificent job throughout. Unlike most plays, the breaking up of the play into different subsets works brilliantly. From Ali McGraw being a nymphomaniac at one time in her life, to the bar scene replete with karaoke, and onto the sex scenes (full nudity). Wheeler has moved out of his ex-wife’s garage and into a two bedroom apartment in Linda Vista... which Wheeler says “has a 1980s East Berlin vibe.” Cash strapped, he fumbles through his life. He get’s fixed up with two old college friends, Margret (Sally Murphy) and Paul (Jim True-Frost), married to each other for 26 years. Paul is noncommittal to anything, confused with his life, the anathema to Wheeler. Paul does as he is told and