{"id":4289,"date":"2014-07-03T16:23:19","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T16:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=4289"},"modified":"2015-02-06T18:30:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T18:30:14","slug":"american-players-theatres-sarah-day-makes-didions-devastating-year-magical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=4289","title":{"rendered":"American Players Theatre’s Sarah Day makes Didion’s devastating “Year” magical"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"print-9952\"Sarah Day as Joan Didion. Photos by Zane Williams<\/em><\/p>\n

The audience laughed at, \u201cYou know when they assign you a social worker you\u2019re in trouble.\u201d But\u00a0 the humor often hangs uneasily in American Players Theatre\u2019s staging of Joan Didion\u2019s adaptation of her riveting memoir of death, suffering, mental\u00a0surreality and \u201cmagical thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the night before New Year’s Eve in 2003, noted author John Gregory Dunne died from a fatal dining-room table coronary, while sitting across from Didion, his spouse and partner of nearly 40 years. The title phrase is Didion\u2019s term for her wishful striving to save him and, somewhat less improbably, to save her only child, Quintana — in extended intensive care for septic shock\u00a0 from flu-related pneumonia in both lungs, contracted a week before her father’s death.\u00a0 \u201cYou sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.\u201d One\u2019s tempted to keep quoting Didion, a lapidary phrase turner.<\/p>\n

And despite the difficult subject and at times, searing intensity, it\u2019s an exquisite pleasure to hear one of the Midwest\u2019s finest actors, APT\u2019s Core Company member Sara Day, handle the entire script. This one-woman show is, at times, breathtaking, with no dramatic theatrical effects: a small two-level stage garlanded with a few flickering candles, a non-descript waiting room-type chair, an end table and book.<\/p>\n

The power derives from Day\u2019s skills and attunement. She often bores her intense gaze right into the audience. You feel she\u2019s handing you her bared soul, showing you how trauma and grief make might make you crazy, a theme of the story. Didion\u2019s stage adaptation cuts back on her book\u2019s obsessive poring through records and arcane medical books, but Day conveys the woman\u2019s self-aware mental surreality. Dunne\u2019s dead, and she returns from ER, and \u201cblood and the EKG electrodes are still on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Such details trigger the desperate detective in her who, if she can just piece together enough information, might just resurrect him or save Quintana. Her denial fuels her quest, especially potent in pursuit of Quintana\u2019s recovery. The newlywed had fallen sick on Christmas Eve 2003, placed in an induced coma and life support.<\/p>\n

The work\u2019s success is curious: Didion\u2019s character adopts a reportorial tone and isn\u2019t particularly likable, more supercilious — alluding several times to the Arthurian knight Guwain, to tiffany bracelets, fancy writing assignments and films adapted from her work.\u00a0 Guwain is metaphorically apt, the denied rightful heir to Camelot\u2019s kingship. And grandiosity is clinically common \u201cmagical thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Day\u2019s virtuosity fascinates, myriad nuanced gestures and emotions, on the brink of \u201cthe void.\u201d The play breathes, through deft pacing, with director Brenda DeVita\u2019s able collaboration. Day often pauses or strolls around her chair and ponders silently. In one superb moment, she suddenly asks the audience, \u201cDo you remember when I\u00a0told you I got her a bracelet like this one?\u201d<\/p>\n

The long pause — her wrist raised in the air — is clarity, and her farewell to magic and Camelot.<\/p>\n

Quintana Roo Dunne died in 2004, after this story\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

The Year of Magical Thinking runs through Oct. 4 in Spring Green in APT\u2019s indoor Touchstone Theater. For tickets, visit www.americanplayers.org.<\/em><\/p>\n

___________<\/p>\n

This review was first published in The Shepherd Express.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Day as Joan Didion. Photos by Zane Williams The audience laughed at, \u201cYou know when they assign you a social worker you\u2019re in trouble.\u201d But\u00a0 the humor often hangs uneasily in American Players Theatre\u2019s staging of Joan Didion\u2019s adaptation … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-17b","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4289"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5771,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions\/5771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}