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Friday, June 22, 2012

Quick Hit Theater Review: The Year of Magical Thinking -- Westport

Maureen Anderman as Joan Didion. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

The Year of Magical Thinking
By Joan Didion
Starring Maureen Anderman
Directed by Nicholas Martin
Westport Country Playhouse

What is it about?
Based on Didion's bestselling memoir of the same title (winner of the National Book Award), it details a year in the life of the author and how she copes with the sudden loss in 2003 of her screenplay writing partner, best-friend and husband, John Gregory Dunne, to a heart attack even while their daughter, Quintana, lies in coma battling a septic infection. The daughter hangs on and seemigly recovers, only to relapse and die in 2005 (Didion recorded her thoughts about this in another book,"Blue Nights".) "Magical Thinking" refers to her thought process as she works through complete denial, avoidance and acceptance of her grief over John's death. The message: Life changes in an instant.

What are the highlights:
It is full of great insight about life, love and coping. An honest reflection that helped the author get through her grief. It's a tour de force for the actress who delivers 90 minutes of monologue without an intermission. Alexander Dodge nicely sets the stage, boxing in Anderman's grief with a wooden frame, then revealing an ocean of grief just beyond a veil of denial (depicted by a backdrop lighted by Philip Rosenberg behind  a scrim).
What are the lowlights?
It's 90 minutes of a lot of unhappy stuff. Depending on how it is presented (here with an intensity that masks some of Didion's humor), it can be difficult to sit through, particularly if you have lost a loved one.

More information:
The year of Magical Thinking runs at the Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, Westport, through June 30.
For more information or tickets: 203-227-4177, toll-free 1-888-927-7529;
www.westportplayhouse.org.

On Thursday, June 28, at  7 pm, Didion will appear at Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street, Hartford. She will be interviewed by Julia Pistell in a special presentation by The Friends of The Mark Twain House & Museum.
Tickets are $40 ($30 for Mark Twain House & Museum members and Hartford Stage subscribers) and can be obtained by calling 860-527-5151 or going online to www.hartfordstage.org. The event will be followed by a dessert reception and book signing.
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Lauren Yarger with playwright Alfred Uhry at the Mark Twain House. Photo: Jacques Lamarre)

My Bio

Lauren Yarger has written, directed and produced
numerous shows and special events for both secular and Christian audiences. She co-wrote a Christian musical version of “A Christmas Carol” which played to sold-out audiences of over 3,000 in Vermont and was awarded the 2000 Vermont
Bessie (theater and film awards) for “People’s Choice for Theatre.”

Yarger trained for three years in the Broadway
League’s Producer Development Program, completed the Commercial Theater Institute's Producing Three-Day Training and produced a one-woman musical about Mary Magdalene that toured nationally and closed with an off-Broadway
run.

She was a Fellow at the National Critics Institute at the O'Neill
Theater Center in Waterford, CT. She writes reviews of Broadway and off-Broadway theater (the only ones you can find in the US with an added Christian perspective) at http://reflectionsinthelight.blogspot.com/. She
is editor of The Connecticut Arts Connection (http://ctarts.blogspot.com), CT Press Club's award winner of first place for web editing and second place in feature writing for the web in 2012.

She is a contributing editor for BroadwayWorld.com and is a theater reviewer for the Manchester Journal-Inquirer. She previously served as Connecticut theater editor
for CurtainUp.com and as Connecticut and New York reviewer for American Theater Web. Yarger is a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly and freelances for other sites. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

She is a freelance writer and playwright and member of The Drama Desk, The Outer Critics Circle, The American Theater Critics Association and The League of Professional Theatre Women. She served as a judge for the SDX Awards presented
by the Society of Professional Journalists. She also is a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle (awards committee).

A former newspaper editor and graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, Yarger also worked in arts management for the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts,
the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and served for nine years as the Executive Director of Masterwork Productions, Inc. She lives with her husband in West Granby, CT. They have two adult children.

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