Celia Weston: A Discerning Eye




Interview with the Author
New Orleans
1982


I detect a discerning eye, which will be marvelous for playwrights and directors with standards, but which may present problems for her: Very few people working today in the theatre—or anything—are capable of sustaining high standards for a terribly long time. It’s far more demanding and damaging than holding a terribly high note, and even that feat eludes the greatest singers after a time. I look forward to seeing how her battles are waged and won.

There is great detail in what she does—she nails things down without being obvious or simple. She is a very clear actress. I saw her a few years ago in something by Michael Weller, and she was frighteningly real in a play that I did not find at all real—she carved a person out of her own character, I suppose, and invested what shards had been given to her with intelligence and a controlled fear.

I regret that she was not in my life when Creve Coeur was limping toward—what? Certainly not Bethlehem. That is a play that will have its day when it has its actresses. I think that Miss Weston will grow into a bold Amanda—not the Faith Baldwin, fainting martyr we have come to know, but the angry, determined, funny, and seductive actress who is perpetually in final dress for the dream that never comes.

Watch for her. She matters to me.


Celia Weston in Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven (2002).


© 2014 James Grissom

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