Roberta Maxwell

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

A thread for all things Robert Maxwell, the actress who played Jack's mother in the film Brokeback Mountain.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/theater/reviews/14rich.html
From NYT THEATER REVIEW | 'RICHARD III'

The Villain Everyone Loves to Hate
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: November 14, 2007



Roberta Maxwell plays Queen Margaret.


http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/11/13/arts/20071114_richard_4.html

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/theater/16simo.html

Sifting the Dustbin of Literary History (Mint Condition)
By ROBERT SIMONSON
Published: September 16, 2007



Lisa Bostnar, left, and Roberta Maxwell in "The Madras House" by Harley Granville-Barker (2007).


http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/09/15/theater/20070916_MINT_SLIDESHOW_3.html

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

http://www.mckellen.com/stage/00139c.htm

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE
Written by Joseph Kesselring
Directed by Alan Gray
Ian McKellen in the role of Mortimer Brewster
Arts Theatre, Ipswich, Suffolk
12 March 1963 - 23 March 1963


(Ian McKellan on the left, of course; can you see Roberta Maxwell on the right?)

CAST
Abby Brewster . . . . . . . . . . . . Doreen Andrews
The Rev. Dr. Harper . . . . . . . . . . . . David Tudor Jones
Teddy Brewster . . . . . . . . . . . . Gawn Grainger
Officer Brophy . . . . . . . . . . . . Chris Winnera
Officer Klein . . . . . . . . . . . . Donald MaKechnie
Martha Brewster . . . . . . . . . . . . Josie Kidd
Elaine Harper . . . . . . . . . . . . Roberta Maxwell
Mortimer Brewster . . . . . . . . . . . . Ian McKellen
Mr Gibbs . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen MacDonald
Jonathan Brewster . . . . . . . . . . . . Brendan Barry
Dr. Einstein . . . . . . . . . . . . Roger Hammond
Officer O'Hara . . . . . . . . . . . . Douglas Ditta
Lieutenant Rooney . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen MacDonald
Mr Witherspoon . . . . . . . . . . . . Colin Kaye

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

Quite a cast!

http://www.stephencollins.com/himself/wtown3sis.html

"The Three Sisters" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival


From the left: John Heard, Rob Lowe, Roberta Maxwell, Kate Burton, Amy Irving, Stephen Collins, and Christopher Walken.

From Stephen Collins Online:

"This was taken in rehearsals for 'The Three Sisters" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It was the last production of Chekhov directed by Williamstown founder Nikos Psacharapoulos before his death in 1988. Walken played Vershinin and was astonishing. Amy Irving played Masha, Roberta Maxwell was Olga, and Kate Burton was Irina. Heard played Masha's Latin-teaching husband, Kulygin, and Rob Lowe was Tusenbach. I played the sisters' brother, Andrei. It was the second time I played the part, the first having been in another all-star production in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the late 70's. I didn't understand Andrei when I played him at Brooklyn (where the three sisters were Ellen Burstyn, Rosemary Harris, and Tovah Feldshuh), but, ten years later, I better understood Andrei's sense of personal failure and his sadness. It's one of the better performances I feel I've given on stage. I didn't want to do the part again, but Nikos twisted my arm, and, as usual, he was right. He had astonishing insight into what roles were right for certain actors at certain times in their lives. I miss him terribly."

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

http://cafeawards.blogspot.com/

[Front-Ranger]

Thanks for enlightening us, John, to Roberta's interesting career!

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

Thanks for enlightening us, John, to Roberta's interesting career!

Thank you, Lee!

I love the Mint Theater (very small in Midtown Manhattan, on 43rd Street)--it always produces extremely obscure gems, some forgotten hits, sometimes a century old, with authors like J. B. Priestley, J. M. Barrie, Harley Granville-Barker, and D.H. Lawrence. In 2007, I saw one called "Return of the Prodigal" by St. John Hankin--I thought it was terrific. BUT--I forgot to see one of the other productions that same year--starring with our Roberta Maxwell!--all I can say, is:

DUH!

Oh well, next time....
 

[Brown Eyes]

Yes!  Thanks for all of this John!  I feel like there's so much more to learn about her long and accomplished career.



This pic from the banner was associated with her role as Hero in the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing in 1969.

Here's the funny blurb she included with her photo shown here!
And, the link includes lots more info about the performance and other cast members.
http://ds.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abj76/PG/works/much_ado_about_nothing_69.shtml

Hero  --   Roberta Maxwell ROBERTA MAXWELL is a versatile actress with impressive credits in the classical and contemporary repertory in London, Canada, and the United States. Miss Maxwell came to New York with the Broadway hit The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and then joined the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis appearing in Sargeant Musgrave's Dance, Merton of the Movies, Little Murders, and two plays which later toured Los Angeles and New York, The House of Atreus and Arturo Ui. A native of Canada, Miss Maxwell was a member of the Stratford Festival Company where her roles included Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing, Lady Anne in Richard III, Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Anne in The Merry Wives of Windsor. She spent three years in England working in repertory and on British television networks and made her West End debut in A Majority of One, with Robert Morley and Molly Picon. She is also interested in unicorns.
 

[shortfiction]

I'm coming in here rather late..........

If you folks haven't seen Maxwell in the Canadian film Last Night, do check it out.  She has a small but strong role as the mother of a man who has chosen not to spend his final hours on Earth with his immediate family.  Her delivery, tone, gestures, and expressions are perfectly chosen, just as they were in BBM. 

[southendmd]

Here she is with Kim Basinger in a TV show called "The Mermaid Chair":

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

Here's something ELSE I missed--damn!
(I'm so glad, though, that Roberta is being properly acknowleged!)

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/theater/reviews/14meta.html

Art Is Sometimes Easy, but Life’s Another Story


Julia Gibson in "The Shape of Metal."

By CARYN JAMES
Published: September 14, 2007

Roberta Maxwell is so magnificent as an aged sculptor in “The Shape of Metal” that it’s easy to see why she would have been drawn to this ramshackle work by the respected Irish playwright Thomas Kilroy. As Nell, she sits rooted in a chair at the start, in tattered clothes that make her look like a bag lady, except for the flourish of a brightly colored head scarf. Her body seems diminished, but her voice remains fierce as she goes into verbal battle with her angry daughter Judith (the equally powerful Julia Gibson).

Judith begins to clear away the empty food containers cluttering the studio, dominated by Nell’s monumental stone sculpture of a woman’s head. And as she does, the women confront messy questions about the past and about Nell’s older daughter, Grace, who disappeared — who escaped or was driven away — when she was a young woman, more than 30 years before.

As the first act goes on, it flashes back those 30 years, and when Ms. Maxwell reappears as the energetic, middle-aged Nell you appreciate how subtly she conveyed the physical and emotional effects of aging without conspicuously acting old. Together she and Ms. Gibson are so potent that they move beyond the clumsy device of Grace (it doesn’t help that Molly Ward plays her so awkwardly, in dreams and flashbacks) and bring life to the unoriginal issues beneath all that anger. Nell is a great artist who is about to be given her own room at the Museum of Modern Art in Ireland. But she has been an emotional monster as a mother, ambitious and sexually free and selfish about what her freedom and ambition have cost her daughters.

Given the promise of Act I, it’s shocking that Act II falls apart so completely, with a resolution so perfunctory and predictable that you can almost see Mr. Kilroy dusting off his hands as if he can’t wait to be through. There are terrific contributions to the production, including Lex Liang’s set design, which gives credibility to the artist’s studio and a sense of space to the tiny stage.

Yet nothing, not even Ms. Maxwell’s extraordinary performance, can prevent the unsatisfying feeling that arrives at the end and undermines the entire experience.

“The Shape of Metal” continues through Sept. 30 at 59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street, Manhattan; (212) 753-5959

[Front-Ranger]

Here's something ELSE I missed--damn!
(I'm so glad, though, that Roberta is being properly acknowleged!)

here, here!! Thank you once again, friend John!!

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

Thank you again, Lee! And thank you Amanda and Paul--really terrific information on Roberta!

Also:

I'm coming in here rather late..........
If you folks haven't seen Maxwell in the Canadian film Last Night, do check it out.  She has a small but strong role as the mother of a man who has chosen not to spend his final hours on Earth with his immediate family.  Her delivery, tone, gestures, and expressions are perfectly chosen, just as they were in BBM. 

Now I want to get a copy of Last Night--thank you, shortfiction
(the reviews seem really, really good)!


Last Night  (1998)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156729/

[Penthesilea]

Just wanted to add a picture I found somwehere on the net. The other woman is some sort of writer; I found it on her homepage. Her name is Ann ... (forgot the last name).

[southendmd]

Here's a link to Roberta's IBDB (Internet Broadway Database) page: 

http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=51946

[Kd5000]

Did they age her in Brokeback Mountain?? She looks younger in these photos.  Though given the life Mrs. Twist led in "Lightning Flat," (poor, downtrodden, bleak environment), it's in keeping with the character. 

[Brown Eyes]

Well, it looks like she was born in 1942, so she's 66 right now.

My guess is that they did try to make her look a little older in BBM, I'm sure they wanted to stress, visually, that she's had a hard life up there in Lightning Flat.

[southendmd]

Here's a clip from O'Neill's  "A Touch of the Poet" (1974) where Roberta looks so young and lovely, with Nancy Marchand (famous for "Lou Grant" and "The Sopranos"):

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DBJh-ipNZc[/youtube]
(3:17)

"I got to the point where all you know or think about is that you belong to love."

"It's love's slaves we are, not men's."

[southendmd]

Two-and-a-half years later!  I found "A Touch of the Poet" in the used DVD section.  It's a filmed version of a stage performance, from 1974.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0204692/

[Meryl]

Good sleuthing, Paul! 

[southendmd]

Good sleuthing, Paul!  

Thanks, Priestess!


Here she is again:  Richard III  opens June 2, 2011 at the Tom Patterson Theatre in Stratford, Ontario.  Titus Andronicus  opens July 14.

November 15, 2010… The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is pleased to announce that Roberta Maxwell will return to the acting company to play the Duchess of York in Richard III and the Nurse in Titus Andronicus.

“Roberta Maxwell is one of the greats,” says Artistic Director Des McAnuff. “She started at the Festival as a child actress. A few years later, when I came to Stratford on one of those yellow school buses, I saw her play Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor. A decade or so after that I was directing her in the title role of Mary Stuart at New York’s Public Theatre. What an absolute delight it is to be working with her once more.”

Ms Maxwell was last at Stratford in 2009, when she played Oenone in Phèdre, which featured Seana McKenna in the title role. Ms McKenna will also play the title role in Richard III as previously announced.

In 14 seasons at Stratford, Ms Maxwell’s roles have included Lady Macbeth, Rosalind in As You Like It, Olivia in Twelfth Night, Nina in The Seagull, Elmire in Tartuffe and Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor. An award-winning actor, she has performed across the U.S. and on Broadway, in such productions as Equus, Our Town and The Carpetbaggers’ Children. Her films include Brokeback Mountain, Popeye and Dead Man Walking.

[southendmd]

And, she played with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard in Chekhov's Three Sisters  this winter off-Broadway.

[southendmd]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ObXzrP4wdc[/youtube]


Here's a delightful look back at the Algonquin Round Table. 

Roberta Maxwell plays the voice of Dorothy Parker.