A tough act to follow

Actresses face many unenviable tasks, of course, but this is a particularly daunting one: stepping into Katharine Hepburn's shoes.

But someone's got to do it, and, in the case of Ivoryton Playhouse's "The Philadelphia Story," that very capable someone is Brenda Withers.

And how hard can that be if Withers has already played Matt Damon?

You read that right.

Withers and her Dartmouth College BFF - Mindy Kaling, who now plays Kelly Kapoor on "The Office" - wrote a comic piece called "Matt & Ben." The Hollywood satire was about, yes, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, with the conceit that the duo didn't write "Good Will Hunting" but that the script literally dropped from the sky.

Withers played Damon, and Kaling was Affleck.

It got huge buzz and lots of critical huzzahs, ending up one of Time magazine's "Top Ten Theatrical Events of The Year" in 2003.

Now, Withers is taking on the role that dramatist Philip Barry created for Hepburn. "The Philadelphia Story," focusing on a haughty socialite named Tracy Lord who's gearing up for marriage number two, turned Hepburn's then-foundering career around. It was a huge hit both on Broadway in 1939 and then as a movie in 1940.

Withers is not going to mimic Hepburn's distinctive delivery, although the writing pretty much demands some of the fast-paced patter of Hollywood movies from that era.

Of course, what's important for audiences here is not just that Hepburn was a legendary actress. She was a local fixture, too. She had a house in Old Saybrook and, back during the summer of 1931, acted at the Ivoryton Playhouse.

Here is what Withers, who grew up on Long Island, had to say about Hepburn, Damon, acting and playwrighting.

Taking on an iconic role in "The Philadelphia Story": I think because everybody loves that movie and the play and Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, you always want to do this play. Then, when you get the chance to, you get a little nervous. But the play is so good and written so well that I felt I could just lean into that and not have to worry about any of the other stuff.

Hearing all about Hepburn: Even just going around town, you say you're doing this play, and everybody has a story about her and meeting her and what she was really like.

There seems to be that kind of New England respect for privacy and people's normal lives that suited her very well, at least from what I heard. She could kind of go about her business, and everybody was happy to let her. She was able to thrive in a community like this. Which is nice, because all the stories you hear are good.

You don't get a sense of gossip, you get a sense of community, which has really been great for me. Because New York, L.A., it's different. All anyone wants to tell you is something terrible about the famous person they saw, what they ate, how they had too many fries or whatever.

Analyzing the character she's playing: It's funny because she's described by so many different people in the play as being like some sort of a statue, a very distant figure. But under it is this

great wit and humor, and I think that's the way in for anyone trying to figure out what she's about. To come and try to play someone who is perfect and pristine is difficult. You can do it, but the inclination is to attack it as a caricature. ... She has a warmer side that's sort of trying to come out. That's where I attach mostly. The other stuff, as with everybody, is more of an act, a public persona, and little by little that gets chipped away.

Creating "Matt & Ben": That was just fun from start to finish, it really was. I was working with my best friend, and we only put the play together as a kind of lark, and it took off. I think any experience where you're doing it for love, really, is always going to bring you a lot more joy. So that was a crazy ride. It brought us out to L.A.

It's a lot of fun as an actor to feel like you have some control over something because you're also the writer. It's very rare. In that experience, we were able to say, "No, we're going to do it this way, actually." And to know you can trust your instincts and say, "Oh, it worked. We did it our way, and it worked."

Playing Matt Damon: He is another iconic figure. You don't know whether to imitate him or not. We chose, perhaps just by default, not to really do that, because we were doing so many other things. We thought we don't really want to do impressions because that wasn't where we were coming from. We were trying to find the universal. We both have brothers; we sort of culled from our experience with them. For the most part, it was an examination of people, so we didn't worry too much about exact impressions.

Working as a playwright (she did a playwrighting fellowship in France last year) and an actress:

It's nice to have both as an outlet because acting is what I grew up doing. But having that freedom to write when you want, where you want, say what you want to say, is a great release valve. As an actor, you are pretty much - much to our chagrin - the lowest rung on the ladder in the business sense in that there's a lot of you out there. Supply and demand is not in our favor. But, as a writer, good scripts are kind of few and far between. If you can get one out there, you have a lot of leverage.