Sawtooth Productions To Present Reading
BY SUN STAFF
Joan Didion is indisputably one of America’s great living authors and considered its premier essayist. Starting at Vogue magazine when she was 22, Didion has chronicled her times in such memorable books as “The White Album” and her first seminal work, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.”
Her life was then changed forever when she lost both her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, and her daughter, Quintana, within the space of 18 months, in 2003. With nowhere to turn, and in an effort to deal with the unimaginable grief, she found her voice again in her art.
The result was the memoir “The Year of Magical Thinking.” It obviously struck a deep nerve, as it went on to become an international bestseller and is considered today to be the iconic meditation on the subject of grief and loss.
On Saturday, Dec. 8, Sawtooth Productions, in association with Laughing Stock Theater Co., will present a free reading of the theatrical adaptation, written by Didion, of “The Year of Magical Thinking,” at The Argyros theater, starring Claudia McCain and directed by Clove Galilee. Running time is approximately 75 minutes and the show will be followed by a short Q&A. Also, complimentary wine will be served in the lobby before the show.
“This will be a first for us in many ways,” said the show’s producer, Jon Kane. “It will be the first theatrical presentation at The Argyros. It will be the first time we have brought in a director for a reading—the very talented Clove Galilee from New York City. And it will be the first time we will be utilizing sound and light for a reading. Since everything at the new facility is state of the art, we thought we’d kick the tires and take her for a test run,” Kane said with a laugh.
For McCain, the piece is extremely touching because “I’ve suffered a great deal of loss over the last 15 years. As artists, we have the amazing opportunity to channel our experiences and feelings through our work. For Didion, writing was a coping mechanism. It enabled her to find structure that worked for her and she used the ability to express herself through that structure to survive.”
Galilee is thrilled to be coming to Sun Valley and felt deep relevance through the piece due to the loss of her mother five years ago. She has theater in her blood, literally, as her father is the visionary director, Lee Breuer, and her late mother, the legendary actress Ruth Maleczech. Today, with her wife Jenny Rogers, Galilee creates critically acclaimed performance pieces that have been presented in New York City and internationally.
“The play is essentially pieces of Didion’s book set onstage,” Galilee said. “It is not a traditional play with easily defined emotional arcs. So my approach to directing it will necessitate a collaborative process that finds the moments of tension and release for the actor as well as the audience.”
Galilee added, “The book was recommended to me when my mother died in 2013. I tried to read it but the grief I felt in the wake of my mother’s death was too great and the emotional truthfulness of Didion’s writing took me too far down the Rabbit’s Hole.
“When I finally read it, I was very moved by the emotional honesty and vulnerability Didion described. It was if she had been there with me through my own grief years before.”