The Year of Magical Thinking

The Year of Magical Thinking is a play by Joan Didion based on her memoir.

Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

So begins acclaimed American writer Joan Didion’s memoir of the year following her husband, John Gregory Dunne’s, death.

The unexpected event ended a partnership of 40 years in a second, just days after their only child, Quintana, had fallen dangerously ill and slipped into a coma.

Faced with the unshakable finality of John’s death, Joan’s normally rational thought processes took a less than pragmatic turn.

She found herself, for example, keeping his shoes, reasoning that he would need them when he returned.

Slowly she began to recognise that, although she was going through the motions associated with the rituals of closure, she was, in fact, longing to perform an impossible trick – to bring John back.

Her memoir is the story of the year she spent wishing – her year of magical thinking.

The Year of Magical Thinking is a journey through that most universal experience of human suffering – bereavement.

The memoir, upon which the play was based, won the National Book Award in 2005 and was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award.

The play was first directed by David Hare and performed by Vanessa Redgrave at the Booth Theatre in New York in 2007 where it ran for 24 weeks. The South African premiere, starring Dorothy Ann Gould and directed by Mark Graham Wilson will be staged in The Barney Simon Theatre until March 31.

For bookings contact Anthony Ezeoke on 011 832 1641 ext 203 or Yusrah Bardien 011 832 1641 ext 204.