Review: The Year of Magical Thinking at The Intiman Theatre
Since the 1960s, Joan Didion has earned acclaim for the cool, elegant prose with which, in several novels and essays, she has dissected American culture and politics. Her other works include classic and well known books such as: The White Album, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and Play It as It Lays. With her husband, John Gregory Dunne, she wrote the screen plays for several films including The Panic in Needle Park and True Confessions.
The play is adapted from book which is based upon the tragic events that started in 2003 with the death of Ms, Didion’s husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, in their living room after returning home from visiting their daughter in the hospital. Their daughter, Quintana, was very ill and in a coma at the time.
The production features Judith Roberts as Joan Didion, who is both stark and poetic at the same time. Ms. Roberts, dressed in plain pants and shirt, makes use of a table, a chair and a sofa on stage to draw you in with the first words she utters. She goes on to speak about coming home with her husband, deciding to eat dinner in, making a fire, preparing a drink for him; the usual things we all do. Then turning away from him to prepare a salad, talking to him and receiving no answer. Turning around seeing him slumped in the chair, “I thought he was making a joke,” she says. Just slumping over and pretending to be dead. By in her expression you feel her guilt and the pain because indeed her husband was not joking.
The play unfolds with how this woman tried to cope with the death of her husband, along with her daughter’s illness and eventual death at the early age of 39 years of age. She goes into this period of trying to change the horrible events in her life she talks about what she needs to do to change the outcome. She needs to bring her husband back so that he can keep their daughter healthy and well. In her controlled voice she speaks about “tasks” – things she needs to do. Things which would not be out of place in a fantasy novel. She refuses help in packing up her husband’s clothes; she does it on her own. Not shoes though, he will need them when he comes back. She buys blue hospital scrubs and shows up in them at her daughter’s ICU unit. If only she can stop or change time she can then control the outcome.
It’s hard to take your eyes off the stage and with Ms Roberts you don’t want to miss anything in her soft intense delivery. The performance takes concentration because of the soft voice it was sometimes hard to hear. But I could see the pain, the numbness by the actor telling the very painful tale of Ms. Didion trying to deal with and get through a horrible period of life. The set is simple and does not distract from the drama on the stage. The lighting goes hand in hand when the tales takes a turn into an even darker ending.
The Year of Magical Thinking plays through September 20, 2009 with tickets ranging in price from $40 to $55. Patrons 25 and under can purchase tickets to any performance for $10 amd pending availability, rush tickets will be sold 15 minutes before curtain for $20.
Don’t miss the ‘Round Six Happy Hour on Friday, September 11 beginning at 6pm when Intiman hosts a free pre-show happy hour with hors d’oeuvres, drinks and live music before the performance. Free with ticket.
For more info and tickets visit www.intiman.org.
– Ethel W.
