Four-time Emmy winner, two-time Golden Globe winner, three-time Academy Award and four-time Tony nominee Laura Linney returns to Broadway in a haunting new solo play adapted by Rona Munro from the bestselling novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout. A sold-out sensation originally produced by the London Theatre Company at the Bridge Theatre in London, Ms. Linney was hailed as "luminous" by the The New York Times, "genuinely phenomenal" by Time Out, and the play was called "deeply affecting and heartbreaking" by The Observer.
Linney plays Lucy Barton, a woman who wakes after an operation to find - much to her surprise - her mother at the foot of her bed. They haven't seen each other in years. During their days-long visit, Lucy tries to understand her past, works to come to terms with her family, and begins to find herself as a writer. This spellbinding story is directed by five-time Olivier Award winner Richard Eyre "with a keen-eyed compassion." - The New York Times
That both of these women are portrayed by Laura Linney is the neat trick of Lucy Barton. In an enthralling performance, Linney embodies both memoirist and memory. Did Lucy's mother even show up, or was she a hospital fever dream? She certainly sounds authentic, and has a real effect on Lucy when she jostles the worst of her daughter's past to the surface. The play, a 90-minute one-act, is a monster of a monologue: Realistic in reflecting the ways that recollections can be inconsistent and tangential, but all the more difficult to memorize for being so. Linney's delivery is seamless. (The show's sound cues, intrusive here, suggest music wafting in from another patient's room; neither the actor nor the audience need them.)
Had the novel been converted into a straightforward, multi-actor drama, many would probably have complained that Strout's meditative authorial voice got lost in the process. But in its current form, 'My Name is Lucy Barton' is not unlike a glorified, live audio book. Coincidentally or not, it was just announced that an audio version of the play with Linney will soon be released.
2018 | London |
London Premiere Production London |
2020 | Broadway |
Manhattan Theatre Club Broadway Premiere Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2020 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Solo Performance | Laura Linney |
2020 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Solo Performance | Laura Linney |
2020 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Laura Linney |
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