![]() ![]() Tightly framed by set designer Bob Crowley’s backdrop of a beautiful if untouchable Manhattan, the impressionistic narrative unfolds in full view of those spectators allowed to sit on two sides of the stage. It’s all in the voice, the voice, the voice, and it’s beautifully done. 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. In this case, it’s the daughter who lies on the hospital bed and the long-estranged mother who comes to visit. 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. ![]() 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. Actors often speak of “inhabiting” a role here, the devotion feels reciprocal. The feeling is obviously mutual, because the character of Lucy Barton returns the actor’s commitment with a quiet but searing fidelity to her visionary performance. ![]() Just watch the radiant expression on her face as she wraps her arms around the character of Lucy Barton, a role she played in two separate engagements at the Bridge Theater in London, and is now reprising on Broadway in “ My Name is Lucy Barton.” ![]()
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