Grieving Through Observation and Analysis

The Year of Magical Thinking – Remy Bumppo Theatre Company

Anytime the extraordinary Chicago actress Annabel Armour takes the stage, audiences know they’re in for an evening of profound enjoyment and absolute emotional connection. It’s no different in this, her current theatrical performance. In a production that’s the theatrical equivalent of running a 26 mile marathon, Ms Armour emerges as a blue ribbon champion. During the hour and forty-five minutes that passes during this intellectually stimulating, yet poignantly affecting one-woman presentation, Ms Armour completely engages her audience in a slow, methodical chase toward the author’s understanding. It’s one woman’s objective means of grieving through observation and analysis.

The late Joan Didion was a gifted and prolific American writer. Earning her BA at the University of California, Berkeley, Ms Didion was immediately snatched up by Vogue Magazine in New York City. While writing her first novel, Run, River, she met Time Magazine contributor, John Gregory Dunne, who helped edit her book. They were eventually married, moved back to California, began writing screenplays together and adopted a daughter they named Quintana.

Joan Didion was mesmerized with how sentences worked in writing. She liked expressing herself with perfect, indirect, complicated phrases, and was influenced by the works of Ernest Hemingway, Henry James and George Eliot. Joan Didion also became an observer and admirer of great journalists. Although she wrote five novels, most of Didion’s work was nonfiction. Joan Didion felt that the genres were basically the same, with the chief difference being the element of discovery that occurs during the research process. Publishing such important works as Slouching Toward Bethlehem, The White Album and Where I Was From, the writer’s literary career had truly taken off. 

But all was not bliss and rosy success for Joan Didion. In 2003 the couple’s daughter developed pneumonia and septic shock, which put her into a coma. During this same time, John Gregory Dunne, her husband and collaborator on so many screenplays, suffered a sudden heart attack and died. Joan Didion understandably had a difficult time coping with both the loss of her husband and her daughter’s severe illness. But then, soon afterward, Quintana fell and injured her head, requiring brain surgery for hematoma. Just as the young woman was beginning to recover she contracted pancreatitis and died a year later. Ms Didion was devastated by so much personal tragedy in her life and could only deal with it through her writing. The result was her much-acclaimed book, The Year of Magical Thinking.

Didion’s book immediately was acclaimed as a classic, analyzing how we mourn and deal with the death of a loved one. It won the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Autobiography. In her book, the author seems almost detached, observing her own behavior and evaluating the toll that grief had taken on her life. She relives each tragic event, objectively detailing her emotional response, and often incorporating the medical and psychological research that deals with grief and illness. The term “Magical Thinking” means that if someone wishes for something strongly enough, and behaves in a certain way, an unavoidable event can be prevented from happening. There are many instances of “What if I had…” but, of course, hindsight is simply a way of expressing remorse at what has happened that, perhaps, might’ve been avoided.

In 2007 Ms Didion adapted her book into a play. It was directed by famed playwright and director, David Hare. The script was expanded to also include material from Blue Nights, Didion’s followup book about the death of her daughter. Vanessa Redgrave was cast to play Joan Didion and performed the demanding role everywhere, including 24 weeks in New York City. The play was later presented at Chicago’s Court Theater, starring Mary Beth Fisher. Finally “The Year of Magical Thinking” has found its way to Remy Bumppo, as the final production of their current, post-pandemic season.

This is a unique piece of theatre. It’s not exactly a play, but more of a catharsis, a personal examination of how we deal with death and mourning. Finely directed by scholar and dramaturg Gabrielle Randle-Bent, and performed with grace and dignity by talented actress Annabel Armour, it touches every patron in a different way. Ms Armour seems to be reading from her book or a journal, but the pages of the prop book appear to be blank. Scenic Designer Yeahi Kim’s simple, winding ramp, with white, cloud-like coils suspended above, is dotted with a bench and a couple of white cubes. Heather Sparling has lit the play with subtlety, much like Jos N. Banks’ muted beige costume for Ms Armour. Jeffrey Levin’s has painted the production with the sounds of ocean waves and water dripping, highlighted now and then with the soft, white noise of a distant machine. 

This has been a dark time, with war waging in Europe and the effects of Covid-19 and other illnesses looming everywhere. Death has become a constant visitor, it seems. To make matters worse, winter continues to linger on, refusing to completely go away. At a time when many of us long for some laughter and lightness, Joan Didion’s dramatic adaptation of her book about grief might not be right for everyone. But her look at loss and profound sorrow, and the way it effects each of us, is presented here through the eyes of one of America’s finest writers. 

Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas

Presented April 27-June 5 by Remy Bumppo Theatre Company at Theater Wit, 1229 W Belmont Avenue, Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the theater box office, by calling 773-975-8150 or by going to www.RemyBumppo.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.