Katherine of Arrogance, Kate the Cursed

Lombardo, Matthew. Tea at Five. Pasadena Playhouse. 10/2/2005.

For me, Tea at Five was a fascinating play that fell apart at the end. In this play, Kate Mulgrew played Katherine Hepburn, at her parents' beach house at Fenwick, Connecticut at two points in her life, 1938 and 1983. According to the program note, the play was written for Mulgrew based entirely on the fact that Lombardo noticed a resemblance between the two. And in many ways, the strength of the play was indeed the imersonation Mulgrew did. It came on strong at the beginning with a heavy accent. The first act in many ways was about Mulgrew posing to affect Hepburn's long, active, lounging look. This act takes place in 1938 as Hepburn retreats from Hollywood after several box office flops to wait to hear if she got the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. What a different movie that would have been! She talks about her relationships, her family, her stage carreer, and my personal favorite was her performance of the morbid calla lillies scene from The Lake, famous for Dorthy Parker's review that "Hepburn ran the gamut from A to B" and Hepburn's subsequent performance of the scene in Stage Door. This act was a little stilted at first, but quite fun once it got going. Mulgrew's technical imitation was excellent, if a little charicatured, and very clearly drawn from a lot of watching Hepburn's movies.

The second half, however, disturbed me a little. It a lot of ways it was the Hepburn I was most familiar with: old, fragile, a little shaky. It was Hepburn in 1983 and she seemed more sorry for herself than spunky. She did a some reminiscing about Spencer Tracy, basically saying that even if he mistreated and abused and never acknowledged her, it was good to have someone who needed her. It was a weird self-effacing depiction of Hepburn as tragic figure and way too psychological. The play seemed really focused on the men in Hepburn's life, the fact that she never got approval from her father and then looked for that mistreatment from Tracy. The whole thing creeped me out.

Honestly, I enjoyed Cate Blanchett as the Great Kate in The Aviator more, but I think that's because the part was more well-written, less stilted and actually showing more personality. I would love to see Mulgrew do Kate in a better vehicle, because I feel that this play was unfortunately not as well-written as it could be, though it was fun to see.