20 October 1952: The Hollywood legend’s performance on stage in The Millionairess does not impress the criticsNEW YORK,October 18.
Miss Katharine Hepburn crashed on to Broadway last night and landed where it hurts. Any hope that she would repeat her dazzling London triumph before the home-town critics was shattered to-day, in a pile of notices on The Millionairess hardly less cruel than the first salute to Miss Hepburn’s stage talents written seventeen years ago by Dorothy Parker: “Miss Hepburn ran the gamut of human emotions from A to B.” The nearly unanimous complaint last night was that she ran the gamut from Y to Z. Only the novel York Post confirmed its affection for lost causes (it is the only metropolitan newspaper from here to St Louis that supports Adlai Stevenson) by finding Miss Hepburn “dynamic mettlesome and talented.”The rest register what they gallantly hope will be dissenting opinions but the dissenting verdict is unanimous. Brooks Atkinson in the novel York Times senses that the “plot seems to be for Katharine Hepburn to supply the youth and vitality” lacking in “a senile play.” But her method is to knock down anything that gets in her way... no doubt one way of concealing the infirmities of an untidy and maundering script.’’ But in the result “it makes for a monotony of its own and too much energy and caterwauling can be stupefying for a full evening.” Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com