'Tea at Five' is first class
2008-02-01
TheatreWorks, New Milford: There has been a rash of one-woman shows this season, but “Tea at Five” at TheatreWorks in New Milford is the one to see.
The show has been performed in Connecticut before, but not like this. Noel Desiato as Katharine Hepburn is, quite simply, amazing. When she first enters the stage, you think to yourself that she doesn’t really resemble Hepburn. By the end of the first act, you think how uncanny it is that she so thoroughly captures Hepburn’s timing, voice pattern, walk, wit and essence.
The focus on Hepburn, who called Connecticut home, makes for an especially interesting night because audiences are familiar with some of the towns and streets mentioned in the script, which Matthew Lombardo constructed so beautifully and tightly. Between the writer and the actress, Hepburn comes back to life.
If you think Hepburn had it all, think again. Sure, she had talent, money and fame. She even had a smattering of love, but she didn’t have the one thing she longed for the most — Spencer Tracy.
As the playbill points out, Hepburn won the most Academy Awards in the Oscars’ history. She was obsessed with having fresh flowers in every room; kept a fire burning in the fireplace at all times — even in the summer; took numerous showers; did her own stunts; and refused to sign autographs, but replied to fan mail. She also was, undeniably, a class act and personified sophistication.
Desiato holds up her chin and strikes a Hepburn pose, and her profile has that Hepburn look. She talks as if she has a bit of lockjaw, but that only adds to her character’s vocal quality.
Directed by Joe Russo and Jane Farnol, with some special thanks to Bill Hughes, Desiato succeeds brilliantly. Rather than portraying Hepburn as a stiff and stuffy socialite, she gets into Hepburn’s mind and soul. When Hepburn learns she is not going to be the lead in “Gone With the Wind,” she is absolutely devastated. However, that’s just the impetus she needs to go after and land the lead in “The Philadelphia Story.”
After intermission, an older Hepburn appears on stage, but she is still determined to be at the top of her form.
Bill Hughes’s set dressing is in perfectly good taste. Joe Russo’s hair and make-up are natural and becoming to the performer. Lainey Ford’s lighting and sound execution is on the money, and this production is a big winner all the way around. Kudos to the cast and crew.