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"The Broadway production ... retains all the book’s quietly radiant humanity. And this quality is even enhanced by the performance of Laura Linney, the sole actor onstage, who embodies it to perfection. Although there is nothing florid or flashy about it — its delicacy and containment are the opposite of superficial bravura — hers is nevertheless the finest performance of the Broadway season to date."

Casually observing the very real cracks in the mother-daughter relationship, the one-time director of the National Theater {Richard Eyre] creates a kind of peace zone, a talking space where mother and daughter can safely reveal themselves and confront their old grievances without fear of letting their nastier emotions get the better of them. It’s a confessional sector of sorts, where bad thoughts and cruel words can be aired without fear of a fight to the death. Parents might think of it as a “time out” corner for their squabbling offspring. For a writer like Strout, it’s a quiet space for speaking softly about incendiary issues like life and death and fear and loathing. And, yes, of love.

Transforming My Name Is Lucy Barton from page to stage in such engrossing manner is quite a feat on the part of the actor, as well as Strout, Munro, and Eyre. Linney gives an astounding performance, circling the truth (whatever that might be) with a supreme ambivalence. The overall effect, on that almost bare platform set within the stage of the Friedman, being that she—the actress and the character—is thoroughly, and nicely, compelling.