"Inadvertently topical" is perhaps the best way to describe The Year of Magical Thinking, at Intiman Theatre through Sept. 20 (tix $40-$55). Joan Didion's own adaptation of her award-winning 2005 memoir of the same title, the one-woman show follows Didion's struggles with grief following the death of her novelist husband John Gregory Dunne in 2003, which coincided with the beginning of the long, catastrophic series of illnesses that eventually claimed her daughter's life the next year. But playing against the backdrop of the ongoing national debate over health care reform, during the show we kept coming back to the--again no doubt inadvertent--lie that is the throughline of the play, and one of the first things Judith Roberts, the marvelous actress who plays Didion, says at the opening: "This will happen to you." more ›

A PLAY OF MAGICAL THINKING: Intiman Theatre presents The Year of Magical Thinking, a play by well-known and much-loved author Joan Didion, based on her bestselling memoir of the same name. Directed by Sama Lapine and starring Judith Roberts, this beautiful show relives the heartbreaking aftermath of Didion losing her husband of 40 years while her daughter lay in intensive care, and how she coped with her grief. more ›