MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON - REVIEW OF 2024 CANADIAN STAGE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

My Name Is Lucy Barton is an adaptation for the stage by Rona Munro of Elizabeth Strout’s novel. It is performed by a single actor and no review should start without giving credit to Maev Beaty for a bravura performance of a complex and long (1 hour and 40 minutes) script without an intermission and without a hitch. It is acting at its best.

This is a memory play and Lucy Barton’s recollections about her life come pouring out as she recovers in hospital from complications following an appendectomy. The first thing that struck me is the title of the play. She insists on telling us her name as if to make sure that we know who she is. She needs to establish her identity first rather than telling us that she will talk about her life or being a writer or any other angle that she may wish to examine. Why the insistence on her name?    

We meet Lucy Barton in the hospital where she is waking up after an operation. Her  appendectomy has become infected and what should have been a brief stay has extended to nine weeks in a New York hospital. Lucy finds her mother seated at the foot of her bed, nothing unusual in that, one would surmise. But she has not seen her mother for nine years and it becomes an important event. Lucy has complicated relations with her mother and almost everyone else that she meets and her mother’s visit begins the unraveling of Lucy’s life as she relates it to us.

She had an unhappy childhood with poverty and difficult, unaffectionate parents. but her mother overcame her fear of flying and is sitting at the end of Lucy’s hospital bed. Do the facts as told by Lucy reflect with reality?

Maev Beaty in My Name Is Lucy Barton. 

Photo: Dahlia Katz/Canadian Stage

The hospital room, the set that is by Michael Gianfrancesco  consists of a bed and a chair for the entire performance. He also designed elegant attire for Beaty. She moves around the stage and narrates part of her autobiography which covers her life from childhood to marriage, to children, divorce and her becoming a successful writer. She tells her story in a stream-of-consciousness style meaning that she tells us whatever comes to her mind without attempting chronological order or any other order that I could discern.

There are a few flashes of humour but Lucy tells us her story in a straightforward fashion that hides far more than it reveals. Her relationship with both her parents, her siblings and her children suggest that this is a dysfunctional family. Is this normal?  She shows very little emotion or histrionics about some very miserable parts of her life. She does love her children and expresses grief about the death of a gay friend from AIDS. She had not seen her mother for nine years and is pleased to see her? Back to her mother’s visit where the two women appear normal. Is it only on the surface? After her mother leaves the hospital, Lucy does not see her for nine years again. What is going on?

Lucy is advised to be ruthless and perhaps she is but her real motivation is to watch people it is that trait that makes her a writer and perhaps all the ups and downs of her life and all the strained relationships are merely a preparation for Lucy to become a writer. The reality behind what she tells us may be opaque because it may simply be the basis for her becoming a writer.

The simple set is supplemented with projected videos of waves in changing colours designed by Amelia Scott, lighting designed by Bonnie Beecher and sound by Jacob Li.

Jackie Maxwell once again displays her sensitivity and mastery in  directing a difficult play to perfection.
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My Name Is Lucy Barton adapted for the stage by Rona Munro from the novel by Elizabeth Strout continues until November 3, 2024, at the Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto, Ontario. www.canstage.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press