One-Woman Show Based on Joan Didion Memoir at Egremont Barn

Linda Purl

Linda Purl

(SOUTH EGREMONT, Mass.) – Actress Linda Purl performs “The Year of Magical Thinking,” a one-woman show adapted by Joan Didion for the stage based on her memoir of the same name, at the newly restored Egremont Barn, a part of the historic Egremont Village Inn, on Saturday, October 15, at 8pm, and Sunday, October 16, at 3pm. 

Linda Purl is perhaps best known for portraying Ben Matlock’s daughter Charlene Matlock in season one of “Matlock.” She has appeared in soap operas, made-for-TV movies, and as a guest star in TV shows including “Hawaii Five-O,” “The Waltons” and “Murder, She Wrote.” More recently, she has appeared in episodes of “The Office,” “Homeland,” and “Desperate Housewives.”

“The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion is an account of the year following the death of the author’s husband, John Gregory Dunne. Published in October 2005, “The Year of Magical Thinking” was immediately acclaimed as a classic book about mourning. It won the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography.

The stage version of Didion’s memoir premiered on Broadway in 2007 in a production directed by David Hare and starring Vanessa Redgrave. The play has been produced numerous times since then, in the U.S. and abroad, and in translation, including Spanish, French, and Norwegian.

 

 

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