It’s not that Vivian Bearing, Ms. Nixon’s character,af madrid, doesn’t possess a sharp and eloquent tongue. She is, please note, an esteemed and intimidating scholar of the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. But the eyes are what first hook and then hold you through this immaculately staged 100-minute journey through the final months of one woman’s life. And while the eyes are usually in agreement with the weighty, exquisitely arranged words Vivian speaks, they also hint at something more profound, which both eludes and informs her intelligence.

Though I was seated close to the stage of the Samuel J. Friedman Theate...