Laurie Metcalf in 'The Other Place' review

For the next 80 minutes, we watch as this fierce, magnificent actress becomes the laser-point center of Juliana, 52, a brilliant neurological researcher who has what she understates as a "bit of an episode" while delivering a sales pitch/lecture to a medical convention in St. Thomas.

Sharr White's tightly swirling psychological thriller, a hit downtown at MCC Theater in 2011, has transferred to Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway venue to reach the broad audience the drama deserves.

Directed with unflinching stealth and progressive emotional jolts by Joe Mantello ("Other Desert Cities"), the play lives mostly in the internal monologues of Juliana as she tumbles into unknown psychological and medical territory.

The temptation is to say too much about the plot, which intentionally disorients us along with Juliana. But don't mistake this for the pablum that goes down easy with disease-of-the-week theatrics. White, in his Broadway debut, writes in crisp short scenes that fold back on one another with deep and ever-deepening distress.

Metcalf's Juliana begins tough and funny, oozing a sexuality that cannot be separated from her braininess. Against startling changes of sound and light designs, her body -- including those no-longer-confident legs -- shape-shifts as she is pummeled by delusions and a genuine life-altering trauma. Operating within a honeycomb of overlapping wooden frames, Metcalf transforms from moment to moment and back again, from sublime competence to a helplessness that is hard to watch. But dare you to take your eyes off her.

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