My Name is Lucy Barton’: Theater Review

Like the spare but elegant novel by Elizabeth Strout (“Olive Kitteridge”), on which Rona Munro (“The James Trilogy”) based this theatrical treatment, the dynamic is the elementary, fraught relationship between mothers and daughters. Here, the situation is not the expected one between a mother on her deathbed and a daughter struggling to affirm the nature of their relationship before their inevitable final parting. In this case, it’s the daughter who lies on the hospital bed and the long-estranged mother who comes to visit. Linney slips effortlessly from the harridan mother to the wounded daughter, strong characters both, dispensing with the usual folderol of switching off costume pieces or twisting herself into physical contortions. It’s all in the voice, the voice, the voice, and it’s beautifully done.