Lynn Redgrave stars in a one-woman show, Nightingale, at The Manhattan Theatre Club off-Broadway in New York. (Joan Marcus/Boneau/Bryan-Brown/Associated Press)

Lynn Redgrave, the iconic British actress and member of the famous acting family, has debuted an off-Broadway production based on the life of her maternal grandmother.

Redgrave, 66, wrote and performed the play Nightingale, which began previews at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York last week.

She combines fact and fiction to create the life of Beatrice Kempson, her maternal grandmother, a woman she remembered as a child for her cold hands.

Kempson, born in the 19th century, was the mother of actress Rachel Kempson, who married actor Michael Redgrave, and grandmother to Vanessa, Lynn and Corin Redgrave.

A tight-laced Edwardian woman, she had an unfulfilling marriage and a fractious relationship with her actress daughter, Redgrave shows. One powerful storyline is Beatrice's relationship with her favourite child, Robin.

Redgrave has drawn laudatory reviews from critics, despite performing the play seated because of an undisclosed medical condition.

"Nightingale is unclouded by girlhood affection," wrote the New York Times. "In fact, this spare, astringent look at the life of a Victorian woman is infused with a chilly sense of the limitations and disappointments of women's lives — both then and now — and the shrinking of the spirit that can result."

Redgrave's performance is a "triple triumph," wrote John Simon of Bloomberg. "For the woman, battling cancer for four years; for the actress, at her peak after four decades; and for the Redgrave clan, which hereby surpasses the mighty Barrymores as the royal family of stage and screen."

Redgrave swings between her grandmother's story and her own — speaking briefly of personal tragedies including her own failed marriage, her battle with breast cancer and the loss of her niece, Natasha Richardson, in a Quebec skiing accident.

Lynn Redgrave, known for film roles in Georgy Girl and Gods and Monsters, has frequent stage roles in London's West End and has appeared on Broadway in Black Comedy.

Nightingale is directed by Joseph Hardy and runs to Wednesday.

With files from The Associated Press