REVIEW: Maev Beaty sparkles at the centre of a sparse My Name Is Lucy Barton
iPhoto caption: My Name Is Lucy Barton production still by Dahlia Katz.
When Maev Beaty walks onstage at the top of My Name Is Lucy Barton, a few things quickly become obvious. One: Lucy is sophisticated, a suave, middle-aged writer draped in expensive purple layers. Two: Lucy is from Chicago, or near it, at least — each “ah” vowel is as flat as the region’s endless cornfields. And three: Lucy is deeply, unshakably haunted.
That’s a lot to convey in the first five minutes. In that first breath, Beaty as Barton explains the relatively straightforward rules of the game: That she, Lucy, recalls being in a New York City hospital room following an operation, and unexpectedly finding her mother at the foot of her bed.
Soon enough, My Name Is Lucy Barton shape-shifts into present tense, framed by memory but experienced in real time by Beaty. This happened in the past, we’re told, but for Lucy, the memory is current and fresh. The aches we see flicker across Beaty’s face haven’t had time to fester; the bruises of an estranged family, an ex-husband, and the friction between the two haven’t yet purpled.
As Lucy settles into the trial of recalling her time in the hospital, she develops three separate personas: Current Lucy, Past Lucy, and, most wrenchingly, Mom. Lucy’s mother, like many mothers, means well, probably, but speaks carelessly, either not noticing her words’ effects on her daughter or not caring. Beaty differentiates the Lucies and Mom through impressive vocal control, imbuing Lucy’s mother with an even more Midwestern accent and a gravelly vocal fry — there’s never a doubt which woman she’s playing as she massages her voice into its disparate registers and wanders the Bluma Appel stage, navigating its sparse topography of a hospital bed and chair.
When Elizabeth Strout wrote My Name Is Lucy Barton in 2016, the novel struck a chord with women around the world — this was a first-person confessional that captured the ineffable pain that accompanies being a daughter. Strout’s novel flits by in snapshots and twinges of heartache, digging into the skin the way only masterful prose can.
But in Rona Munro’s adaptation, Lucy loses some bite; it’s debatable how well the idea works as a piece of theatre. Jackie Maxwell’s production is simple and bare, at times drowned out by the enormous spatial echo of the Bluma. Beaty gleams at the centre of the production, right at home in the body of a woman as complicated as she is generous as she is grieving, but the negative space around her sometimes makes it tough for the play to grab hold of the audience and shake.
Michael Gianfresco’s set accompanies Amelia Scott’s clever projected backdrop, a motion blur that dissolves into abstract colours and textures as Lucy falls further into the chasm of her memories, but those movements are slow and amorphous, nearly undetectable until they’ve already happened. Bonnie Beecher’s lighting, too, is flattering and nice to look at, but relatively stagnant — visually, My Name Is Lucy Barton barely changes in the 105 minutes it takes for Beaty to tell this story, and while Beaty is as engaging and warm as ever, ultimately, the play and production feel a touch static.
My Name Is Lucy Barton ought to have been a cinch for Canadian Stage, a sumptuous story shared from the mouth of one of Canada’s most prolific and consistently employed actors. And indeed, it’s not Beaty who’s dropped a stitch here. Would the play be more effective if afforded a less literal adaptation, one that accounted for the vast potential of a staged piece of performance? Maybe. Would the production feel more immediate and less cavernous had it been staged at the Berkeley Street Theatre? Almost certainly. If you loved Strout’s novel — or, more to the point, if you want to watch Beaty act her face off for an hour and a half — head to Canadian Stage. But if you leave My Name Is Lucy Barton with the sense this endeavour might have been just as effective as a Beaty-narrated audiobook, you’re not alone.
My Name Is Lucy Barton runs at Canadian Stage until November 3. Tickets are available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling is Intermission's senior editor and an award-winning arts journalist with bylines including the Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, CBC Arts, CTV News Toronto, and Maclean's. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.
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