THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING. Dorothy Ann Gould performs a play based on Joan Didion’s memoir. Directed by Mark Graham Wilson. Baxter Theatre.
MEGAN FURNISS reviews
It took me a while to settle in to the detail. I had to shake off my own day, painted in much broader, Cape Town brushstrokes. My life is louder, ruder, more in your face than the words and scope of this piece of theatre.
Dorothy Ann Gould as Joan Didion leads us through her deeply personal year of coming to grief; arriving at it from denial, magical thinking – if I do this then that won’t happen – and what the world brings to a person who loses their person and inner place in the world. It is an hour and forty minutes of detail, description, return to memory, circling, throwing away, fetching back, storytelling. It is picture painted through word and gesture, and half-forgotten then piercingly remembered moment, like the irritation felt at the hospital social worker’s use of the word “fare” instead of taxi.
Dorothy is enthralling. She is masterful, tender, crotchety and so entirely New York City I could almost smell her apartment, the hospitals, the Hudson and the sea. She is a magician of the subtle detail and her performance here is beautiful. Mark Graham Wilson’s sensitive direction is perfect, from his realignment of the studio space to Dorothy’s movement in and around it, reflecting back how she tells the story; circling, backtracking, looping, honing in, owning.
All pieces – set, lighting, fragments of music and video animation are carefully, beautifully chosen and constructed.
Expounding on feelings
But. This is not a play where I could sit back and let it flow over me. I had to work hard to stay in it and I am still trying to work out why. This is what I have come up with. It is possible that I was sitting under the air con, but I struggled to hear. I found the volume really, really, really soft. I had to sit forward in my chair when Dorothy’s back was turned from me. Then, while I found the material extraordinarily beautiful, it is so American it borders on the completely self-absorbed. American writers (and performers) are especially good at taking time to examine, re-explain, develop and expound on their feelings. And sometimes, from where I stand, it is a luxury we are not that used to.
I am still thinking about this piece and how beautifully it is written and performed. Even though it was like watching a year’s worth of personal grief therapy given words by someone who is very excellent at saying how they feel.
What: The Year of Magical Thinking Baxter review
Where and when: Baxter Golden Arrow Studio from 3 to 28 July 2018
Book: Webtickets
WS
