My Name is Lucy Barton - previews — Page 2

I'm in the camp that found this utterly boring and entirely pointless. I'm slightly biased in that I hate when shows are predominately narration, but my personal taste aside, it also raises the question of why they bothered turning this into a stage play if they were just going to treat it like an audiobook. The few attempts at genuine theatricality fell very flat for me.


EDIT: and just to be clear, when I say “theatricality,” I don’t mean explosions or grandness or heavy action. I just mean a dramaturgical purpose for existing in the form of a stage play.

Updated On: 1/28/20 at 12:13 AM

Jordan Catalano said: "You could ask that about any one-person show though since they’re all usually one person just talking."



That's correct! And as it happens, I DO ask that about every one-person show. But luckily, some of them manage to find ways to clear this hurdle. In my opinion, a one-person show (or any show that is heavy on narration, for that matter) can only work if the writer, actor(s), and director all work together to build a particular kind of relationship with the audience and/or with the actor's surroundings, in order to incorporate the narration into a storytelling lens where the act of telling the story feels just as important, if not, more important than the story itself. There were some times in this show where I could tell they were trying to do something like that, but for me, it wasn't nearly enough.



"The fact this happened to be an audio book and will be again (with Linney) doesn’t detract from her performance and the story being told."



The fact that it is, and will again be an audiobook has nothing to do with me disliking the show. Quite the opposite. The reason I disliked the show is that I felt, while watching it, that it would ONLY work as an audiobook. In my opinion, the story had no reason to exist in a live format. Even Linney's performance didn't quite do it for me. She's a great actor (I thought she should have won the Tony for Little Foxes over Metcalf), and if this had been a dialogue-based two-hander, I might have been blown away by this performance. But for me, this performance didn't tick the boxes of what makes an effective solo show.

Updated On: 1/28/20 at 09:36 AM

Jordan Catalano said: "“ But for me, this performance didn't tick the boxes of what makes an effective solo show.“

Yes. As you’ve repeatedly said. It’s not going to change my mind on what I thought, though. "


I apologize if anything I said implied that I had even the faintest intention of trying to change your mind. I’m just explaining and clarifying my point of view, for the sake of artistic discussion, which I see as the purpose of these threads. I’m a firm believer in everyone being entitled to their opinions, and you’ll noticed that I qualified virtually every one of my sentences with an “I” statement.