Peter Mac as Katharine Hepburn is nothing short of sensational. There is no other word to encapsulate how well he inhabits the great star and channels her energy and conveys her emotions. Within minutes, he makes an audience ignore the fact he bears little physical resemblance to Hepburn and accept him as the authentic article.

Knowing this is the same man who so expertly becomes Judy Garland, it is phenomenal to see him transform himself into such a different woman so convincingly and so completely — and to sustain the illusion for more than an hour of story-telling and, yes, even singing.

The singing is minimal — only seven songs — but what is there is “cherce,” as Spencer Tracy said of Hepburn in the movie Pat and Mike, including two songs by Alan Jay Lerner and André Previn from Coco, the Broadway show Hepburn did in 1969: the title song, plus the finale, “Always Mademoiselle.”

Towering above all other segments in the show is “ Hepburn’s” extended discussion of her 27-year affair with Tracy, in which Mac makes brilliant use of the song “The Glory of Love” (Billy Hill) — which was used as the theme from Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the duo’s last movie together.  A superb actor, Mac had many audience members tearing up as he described the filming of Tracy’s final scene in the movie — encompassing the actual monologue from the film’s soundtrack played over the room’s sound system — followed by the details of the night he died about two weeks later and how Hepburn handled the aftermath.

The evening’s other emotional high point was the discussion of the suicide of Hepburn’s brother Tom and her lifelong frustration of not knowing what demons drove him to it — which linked up later with her inability to understand the demons that drove Tracy.

Mac as Hepburn also talked amusingly about her problems with neighbor Stephen Sondheim’s late-night piano playing and with a wrecking crew working across from the Mark Hellinger Theatre during the run of Coco, whom she ultimately supplied with coffee and donuts every matinee day to keep them quiet for the eight minutes of her final number.

Mac was able to connect more intimately with his audience by abandoning use of a microphone when he was speaking, using it only when he sang — a technique he adopted for the second night of the two-night run after holding the mic throughout his initial performance.

Musical numbers included: “I Hate Musicals” from Ruthless (Marvin Laird/Joel Paley), which opened the show; “Almost Young” (Jerry Herman, from Mrs. Santa Claus), relating to a discussion of the challenges of aging; and a medley of “Sister Suffragette” (Robert and Richard Sherman, from Mary Poppins) and “Suffragette March” (Herman, from Mrs. Santa Claus), relating to a discussion of the work Hepburn’s mother did on behalf of women’s suffrage.

Accompanying Mac on piano, and occasionally prompting him with questions to Hepburn, was Bryan Miller.

Dressed in a gray wig piled high on top of his head, loose slacks, a turtleneck under an open dress shirt and a red sweater tied around his neck, Mac had all the outward details of Hepburn down pat, including the head-shaking, which he maintained throughout the show — a condition “Hepburn” explained was not due to Parkinson’s disease but to an inherited family trait.

Mac wrote the show drawing on various source materials, including Hepburn’s autobiography, her 1973 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show and various biographies, plus some quips he “borrowed” from one of his idols, Charles Pierce.

Elliot Zwiebach
Cabaret Scenes
August 6, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org