Imagine you are the recipient of an engraved invitation to join Katharine Hepburn for a cup of tea at her home in the Fenwick section of Old Saybroook at five o’clock. Would you hesitate for a second before accepting with pleasure and running to your closet to find an appropriate sundress or pants suit to wear?
Katharine Hepburn was a Hollywood leading lady for over six decades, the winner of four Academy Awards, a true Connecticut daughter, who was named in 1999 the greatest female star of Classic Hollywood Cinema by the American Film Institute. Kate died in 2003 at her home in Fenwick at the venerable age of 96. You have the unique opportunity to make her acquaintance over a cup of tea courtesy of the remarkable acting talents of Carlyn Connolly and the Ivoryton Playhouse until June 28. Ironically Kate got her start acting at Ivoryton and that was where she was first discovered.
Thanks to Matthew Lombardo’s revealing comedy “Tea at Five,” we are privileged to meet Ms. Hepburn at two distinct stages of her life, the first September 1938, when she is mentally reviewing her career to date and actively lobbying to get the role of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind,” and fifty years later in February 1983 when she is contemplating her life and her choices, now a victim of Parkinson’s disease which she refuses to accept.
Carlyn Connolly becomes this venerable actress, who is aggressive, self-assured, strong willed, an athlete, a non conformist, independent, unconventional and eccentric, with a distinctive patrician voice. Connolly shares intimate details of Kate’s life, in a progressive and structured family that kept secrets, her early drive and ambition to be a movie actress, her many missteps along the way, and the plays and movies and even television roles she accepted.
She happily admits that the press was not fond of her or her of it, and she even earned the title Katherine of Arrogance. When she had six or seven flops in a row, she also earned the appellate “box office poison.” Her relationships with many Hollywood big wigs were often contentious and she was known to bully and boss to get her way. A creature of habit, she often sought the comfort of her family when things went awry, and she enjoyed a cup of tea every day at five o’clock. The audience is privileged to be in her company for that tradition.
Her father had a tremendous influence on Kate, one she reveals in difficult confessions. Tom, her older brother, was her protector and she terms it “Paradise” when she was home in Fenwick with him. His death had a tremendous influence on her life. As she sips tea, she sprinkles her stories with tales of the 1938 hurricane that washed her home away, her dalliance with such suitors as Howard Hughes, her relationship with her German acting teacher, her abhorrence of calla lilies, her brief marriage and her dislike of the institution and her conflicts with leading stars like John Barrymore and composer Stephen Sondheim.
In the second act, we meet a Katharine who has suffered many disappointments and is now actively battling Parkinson’s. She has just suffered a car accident and has a broken ankle. Warren Beatty is pursuing her to end her retirement and return to the screen and he has mistakenly sent her a bouquet of calla lilies to woo her. This is a frail and fragile queen who is still in charge of her reign. Her attention to detail is still a primary key to her success in life. Even now she is finally ready to reveal her private relationship with Spencer Tracy, one she kept secret for more than twenty five years.
Through all her trials and triumphs, she freely admits that work has always been her salvation and her priority. After Tracy's death, she returned to acting to survive. Even at the finale, she was always seeking her happy ending. For tickets ($60, senior $55, students $25, Thursday discount night at 6 p.m. if available for $30), call the Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street, Ivoryton at 860-767-7318 or online at ivorytonplayhouse.org. Performances are Wednesday at 2 p.m., Thursday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Ivoryton’s Executive Director Jacqueline Hubbard directs this wonderful visit with Kate with sensitivity and skill. Next up is Tim Rice and Andrew lloyd Weber’s fun family musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" June 26 to July 27.
The playwright Matthew Lombardo was present at Sunday’s performance, clearly enjoying his work, with a tear in his eye, this heavily researched memoir he penned twenty-five years ago. He wrote it for the actress Kate Mulgrew who premiered it at the Hartford Stage and then toured with it across the country.
Don’t miss Carolyn Connolly’s outstanding performance as one of America’s foremost females of stage and screen and be guaranteed to learn some intimate secrets and gain even more admiration for our personal Connecticut star.
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