The Philadelphia Story

Barry’s study of Philadelphia’s Main Line high society remains one of the high points of ’30s screwball comedy. The play’s juxtaposition of leisured aristocratic life with the romantic cynicism of Destiny magazine reporter Mike Connor (Hambrock) offers some complex reflections on class and art in America. And the brittle, brilliant socialite Tracy Lord (McClain in the role created for Katharine Hepburn) is as indelible a character as any of Shakespeare’s comic heroines: tough and vulnerable, self-created within her gilded surroundings. Finding her well-laid marriage plans falling apart on the eve of her wedding, Lord engages in an elegant and bracingly adult burst of discovery, enabling her to declare in the play’s rich last lines that being human is all the heaven anyone need know.

Circle’s Philadelphia Story is straightforward, unashamed to conjure memories of George Cukor’s potent film adaptation. McClain often seems to be channeling Hepburn in her performance, and the tall, slender Hambrock has the bearing of a young Jimmy Stewart, while adding his own note of impetuosity to the gossip writer who yearns for artistic respectability. As Lord’s ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven, whose role in the play is rather more circumscribed than in the film, Anderson has a casual assurance, although his relatively bland take on the part leaves Lord’s ultimate decision looking a little more mysterious than perhaps it should be. Designer Bob Knuth has created a lush, overstuffed drawing room to contain these convoluted nuptials, evoking exactly the right blend of discomfort and ease.

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