REVIEW: Laura Linney in “My Name is Lucy Barton”

Laura Linney in “My Name is Lucy Barton”. Photo by Matthew Murphy

It comes late in the show, that slightly dreaded but nonetheless expected moment in which a character speaks the title of the play aloud.

“My Name is Lucy Barton”. 

I’m sure it is meant to be a poignant moment, as such moments are usually meant to be, but one problem is, no one asked the question.  And more to the point: why is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout’s acclaimed and bestselling 2016 novel of the same name now a play anyway? 

Setting aside the obvious commercial appeal, therein lies the greatest and most confounding mystery of “My Name is Lucy Barton”, an otherwise well-acted, star vehicle solo show that opened January 15th at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway for a limited eight week run following two hit engagements in London in 2018 and 2019.

Laura Linney (“The Little Foxes”, “Time Stands Still”) stars as, you guessed it, Lucy Barton, a successful New York writer who, in the mid-1980s, is hospitalized for nine weeks while coping with an unnamed infection following a routine appendectomy, during which she is visited in her hospital room by her estranged and oddly-clairvoyant mother—also played by Ms. Linney laying on a thick Chicago-area accent—causing Lucy to reflect on the abusive childhood in rural Illinois that she escaped, and the dysfunctional family she left behind.

Not having read the book, my charitable hunch is that its adaptation as a work of drama does not do justice to what warranted the impulse to create such an adaptation in the first place—nor the many literary commendations it has racked up.

As a book, I assume the story and character are graced with the proper space to breathe—the reader given a private, contemplative opportunity to stew in Lucy’s trauma, sadness, detachment, and resentments. 

But as a play, we are given little reason to be invested in Lucy’s story, and not much of a compelling frame through which to experience it.  An uncharacteristically uninspired set design by Bob Crowley, replete with literal projections of a field or skyline as both are mentioned in text, doesn’t help.

I get the sense that whatever was left on the cutting floor might have filled out the picture better, but a play can only be so long and do so much—one advantage a book offers—the resulting trade-off a desultory adaptation by Scottish writer Rona Munro that is a rough patchwork, thinly sewn together from the disparate vignettes of Lucy’s life, and never satisfactorily justifying its very existence. 

Thankfully, what might otherwise be a truly dreadful evening at the theatre is saved by the presence of Ms. Linney, who is surely one of her generation’s greatest actors, and proves it here in spades, doing the best she can with what she’s been handed.

Casually brushing away tears throughout the 90 minutes she anchors the piece alone, Ms. Linney creates a grounded and forthright portrait of her titular character—a feat considering the character herself doesn’t make much of an impression.  Ms. Linney possesses a rare gift, a compelling vulnerability and effortless craft that is a thrill to witness live on stage.  I only wish it had been given in service to a more artfully crafted play.

“Everyone has one story”, Lucy says.  After hearing hers, so often narrated as polished prose, I’m not convinced it warranted a stage adaptation and couldn’t have just as happily lived as a novel.  Plans for an upcoming Penguin Random House Audio recording of the production seem to confirm my intuition.

Bottom Line: Laura Linney stars in an unnecessary and poorly adapted stage version of Elizabeth Stout’s acclaimed 2016 novel, “My Name is Lucy Barton”.  Despite a grounded and forthright performance from one of the greatest actors of her generation, the play never satisfactorily justifies its existence.

_______________
“My Name is Lucy Barton”
Manhattan Theatre Club
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
216 West 47th Street
New York, NY  10036

Running Time: 90 minutes (no intermission)
Opening Night: January 15, 2020
Final Performance: February 29, 2020
Tickets