Seana McKenna goes solo with The Year of Magical Thinking

Credit: David Cooper

Page to Stage

Seana McKenna has a conversation with the audience in The Year of Magical Thinking

If you’re going to go big, you may as well go really big. That seems to be the case with the Belfry’s latest production, the Canadian premiere of The Year of Magical Thinking. Based on Joan Didion’s widely acclaimed 2005 book, which chronicled the famed author’s journey through the grief resulting from her husband’s sudden death and the bleakly coincidental illness of her adult daughter, Magical Thinking was then transformed into an equally acclaimed Broadway production in 2007, starring no less than Vanessa Redgrave.

“It’s a remarkable book that I know has affected many people, and the play is equally beautifully and filled with unique observations from an exceptionally intelligent woman who’s very much in touch with her emotions,” says director Michael Shamata, who saw Redgrave in the New York production prior to becoming the Belfry’s artistic director. And given the project’s impressive pedigree, it seems only natural he would then look to a luminary of Canadian theatre like Seana McKenna to bring it to life here. “Once I was contemplating this job at the Belfry, I immediately thought of it as something that was perfect for this theatre, this space and this audience—and at that point, Seana was front and centre in my mind. As far as I was concerned, there was no one else in the country who I would like to see in this, or take this journey with.”

High praise indeed, but no big surprise given McKenna’s background, which reads like a who’s-who of great theatrical roles; add in her more than 25-year friendship with Shamata (he was even the best man at her marriage to former Belfry artistic director Miles Potter) plus her own long association with the Belfry (including The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Atlantis and Educating Rita) and it seems inevitable that she’d be back in town again. Not that she was simply waiting to play this part, however (“I hadn’t read it till Michael brought it to me,” McKenna admits)—or even considers it a traditional part at all.

“It’s funny, but I don’t really think of her as a character,” she says. “Partly because she has no name—it’s not set up like a play, with a character name—and because it really reads like a small novel. It’s a story, it’s a narrative, so in a way I’m really just the storyteller. Joan Didion didn’t want anyone playing her; she wanted this very much to be her story, but wanted it told by the voice of many women, because it’s something that many people go through: love and loss and, hopefully, survival.”

Despite the non-traditional aspect of the part, does McKenna feel there’s a difference between playing a “big” role like, say, Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire and tackling a more intimate show like this? “They’re very different beasts,” she muses. “With a play you have the comfort and pleasure of working with your fellow actors—and basically listening, because most of good acting is listening and responding. But with a one-person show, the audience is your playing partner . . . it can be daunting, because you’re always going to have a different audience, so your partners change every night. And that’s a big part of it, trying to have a conversation with the audience.”

For Shamata, directing a solo production requires a different dynamic. “I don’t know if I’d say it was harder, but it’s a much more intimate situation, dynamic relationship,” he says. “It becomes a very private journey as we move towards the show becoming public—especially with a piece of this nature; you take each step with caution and care.”

And is McKenna pleased to be back in Fernwood? “I have a pretty busy schedule and an 11-year-old, so it takes something really quite tasty to take me away from home,” she chuckles. “But this was one of those delightful opportunities. The Belfry is a wonderful place to go, a beautiful space to work in; it’s so intimate, you really do feel like you’re sharing with the audience as a whole. They’re so close, you get a real sense of community, and theatre is a communal art. I can’t do this without an audience. What’s the point?” M

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The Year of Magical Thinking
Opens 8pm Thursday
To December 13
The Belfry, 1291 Gladstone
Tickets $23-$48 • 250-385-6835
belfry.bc.ca