Just got back from seeing Tony-nominated actress Vanessa Redgrave as Joan Didion in The Year Of Magical Thinking at the John Booth Theater. This was one of my favorite books from 2005 by Ms. Didion, so I was looking forward to seeing this for several weeks. I think they did a terrific job of translating the text to stage and added some interesting theatrical devices including dramatic backdrop changes and lighting. I didn't instantly love the 1 1/2 hour one woman show and perhaps it might be a little too self-indulgent, but after reflection it made me appreciate the book even more and still added something to the text itself. I suppose that's what it is about anyway -- what art is about. Good art, I suppose, pushes something forward and I think that's what happened here.
I read the book while I was in California which was the perfect setting. Reading about their lives in Malibu and driving on Sunset seemed to really resonate more with me while I was there. It also made me think about the time I spent in Los Angeles and how different a place it is. Even before this book (now, play) I recall her description of L.A. and the Santa Ana winds (from Slouching Towards Bethlehem) as "the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows.'' How great is that?
The strength of both the play and the book lie in Ms. Didion's language and writing. To me one of the most powerful parts of the book is near the beginning when she has just rushed to the hospital with her dying husband:
"'He's dead isn't he.' I heard myself say to the doctor. The doctor looked at the social worker. 'It's okay,' the social worker said, 'She's a pretty cool customer.' They took me into the curtained cubicle where John lay, alone now. They asked if I wanted a priest. I said yes. A priest appeared and said the words. I thanked him. They gave me the silver clip in which John kept his driver's license and credit cards. They gave me the cash that had been in his pocket. They gave me his watch. They gave me his cell phone. They gave me a plastic bag in which they said I would find his clothes. I thanked them. The social worker asked if he could do anything more for me. I said he could put me in a taxi. He did. I thanked him. 'Do you have money for the fare,' he asked. I said I did, the cool customer. When I walked into the apartment and saw John's jacket and scarf still lying on the chair where he had dropped them when we come in from seeing Quintana at Beth Israel North (the red cashmere scarf, the Patagonia windbreaker that had been the crew jacket on Up Close And Personal) I wondered what an uncool customer would be allowed to do. Break down? Require sedation? Scream?"
Cool customer. What a great description.
Cool customer again resonated that same year with me when I read To A Fog Spirit On Halloween in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Spires in which she writes, "Made up and masked, you stream into the night, your cape floating, like gossamer behind you, the moon illuminating what you are and are not: a cool customer, slippery as quicksilver."
I couldn't believe I came across that poem right after I finished the book. Funny how words can find you.
I love great language especially when it transports you somewhere -- not necessarily a place but a time. Great music does that too.