The Year of Magical Thinking
The Year of Magical Thinking
By Joan Didion
Directed by Bobby Bell
Starring Peg O’Keefe
Mad Cow Theatre, Orlando FL</strong>
You won’t have to spend much time searching for subtext in “The Year of Magical Thinking.” Hard-as-nails Joan Didion (O’Keefe) has just lost the two closest people she has, and she’s struggling to make sense of it. Call it grieving, call it closure, or call it unexpected widowhood, we open with a warning that this will come to all of us, although the details will differ. Didion obsessively attempts to control the world. She takes notes, does research, and buy neurological texts to try and speak the same language as the doctors. All is to no avail; she invests all her energy and hope in the return of one part of her life and the survival of the other, and is left alone in the end. All she can do is navigate her life around these two great, deep holes that will never be filled.
O’Keefe’s rendering of this very personal one woman autobiography sucks you in. She passes from the wacky Aunty Peg we know into the soul of this woman we’ve never met but wish was on our side. Didion controls her world and swear to always protect her daughter, but in the key moment, she falters. The falter is only in her mind; in reality she has no control over the synapses in another’s brain. With its candy colored lighting and occasion impromptu use of outside street noise, “The Year of Magical Thinking” may be the best course on grief management you’ll ever experience.
For more information on Mad Cow, please visit http://www.madcowtheatre.com
