Staunton Leads “Woodstock” Cast
All those acid-flashback Woodstock stories this past weekend in the media were just a bunch of baby-boomer fart-knockers going in teary search of their youth, didn’t ya think? And now my spies tell me that Ang Lee’s imminent “Taking Woodstock” story isn’t much more engaging. EXCEPT: Imelda Staunton’s turn as Sonia Teichberg, the paranoid Jewish mom of the main character, has everybody chattering. She explains the work in this video interview; in the still photo I’ve published Sonia has the determination of Joan of Arc. It’s an almost Grand Guignol performance apparently. (I thought that Grand Guignol, a French term, was used in an American context exclusively by stoopid commentators looking to disparage that masterpiece, “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?“) Anyway, Staunton, best known for her superb should-have-won-the-Oscar performance as an abortionist in “Vera Drake,” really hijacks “Woodstock.” Apparently.
