TOUGH "YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING"

By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com

 

 

Pretending to be famed writer, journalist and social commentator Joan Didion sounds daunting enough, yet here is Toni Press-Coffman doing exactly that, onstage in the upstairs Cabaret Space at the downtown Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.

She is performing the demanding 90-minute monologue “The Year of Magical Thinking” adapted by Didion from her award-winning book of the same name. Vanessa Redgrave performed the role on Broadway in 2007.

The autobiographical book describes the author’s response when her husband of nearly 40 years, the writer John Gregory Dunne, died of a heart attack at the dinner table in 2003. Less than two years later, their daughter Quintana, passed away following a lengthy illness.

Didion’s stated purpose for writing the book, and adapting the play, is to remind us all that the story of her loved ones dying will also be our story one day – every one of us. And in doing so, also remind us that even a profound and devastating loss can be overcome.

Whether you want to be reminded or not is up to you.

Press-Coffman’s studied presentation, directed by Christopher Johnson, is a brave performance of understated complexity, both demanding and emotionally grueling. A light-hearted evening of theater this is definitely not.

That title comes from Didion’s own way of dealing with the harsh realities she faced immediately after her husband’s passing. Clearing out her life, she did manage to dispose of his clothes, but she couldn’t give away his shoes – he would need them when he came back, she insisted.

Such magical thinking eased the pathway that circumstance forced her to follow. Yet, this personality also works against her in taking the book from page to stage. That deliberate quality which added literary heft to her experience does not lend itself to theatrical expression.

Press-Coffman has lots of material to get through, but very little opportunity to show us that the words of the script (often taken straight from the book) represented her inner thoughts.

As one critic phrased it, comparing “Magical Thinking” to Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” Didion is a starker and sterner writer who would rather throw up than descend into the mawkish sentiment that Kushner would eagerly embrace. Or even more directly, say, Mitch Albom’s “Tuesdays with Morrie.”

Didion’s carefully described recollections may provide lots more detail than you really need to appreciate the tragedies in her life.

“The Year of Magical Thinking” runs through Sept.15, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, in the Cabaret Space at the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. Tickets are $20 general admission, $17 for seniors, students, military with ID and theater artists. For details and reservations, 520-401-3626, www.windingroadtheater.org