Monday, March 25, 2013

Comments

“....In all the shouting, so well deserved, about Jackson, please, please let us not overlook Washbourne. This is fine character acting by a fine character actress at the apex of a long career: exquisitely controlled, beautifully selected, timed impeccably, utterly inhabited. See her in the doorway when Stevie is helped out of a taxi after her suicide attempt. See her--after her earlier scenes of marcelled hair and perfect composure--as illness encroaches, in her dressing gown, with one loose tendril of hair, making her way fearfully to her easy chair. It's an actor's poem about the passage of time.”

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic, July 25, 1981

“…. I felt the ancient call of the Word stirring deep in my image-worshiping soul. I was aided in my regression in no small measure by Glenda Jackson as Stevie Smith, Mona Washbourne as her aunt, Alec McCowen, and Trevor Howard, each of whom weaves a spell of words that should leave any civilized viewer moved and shaken….”

Andrew Sarris, Village Voice, July ?, 1981

“…. But [Jackson] is not the whole show: Mona Washbourne is just as astonishing in her ‘stuff and nonsense,’ tea-cosy way as Stevie’s ‘lion aunt,’ and her gradual descent into senility is masterfully evoked…. [I]t’s not for cinematic flash that one goes to ‘Stevie’—it’s for the special company that one gets to keep.”

David Ansen, Newsweek, August 3, 1981


“Mona Washbourne is so lovely as the aunt that you understand precisely how her volatile, neurotic niece could find a grounding for her disturbing art in commonplace things, in order, affection, small physical comforts….”

from "Cue Listings", New York, July 27, 1981. Likely either William Wolf or David Denby.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home