The Lake

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The Lake is also a novel by Yasunari Kawabata. For other uses, see Lake (disambiguation).

The Lake was a British play written by Dorothy Massingham and Murray MacDonald. It debuted on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on December 26, 1933 and was one of acting legend Katharine Hepburn's first major Broadway roles.

Directed by Jed Harris, the infamous "big bad wolf" of American theater, the play was a critical and popular flop, though it had a respectable run of 55 nights.

Hepburn in particular drew sharp rebukes in the newspapers, many of which were penned by the same critics who loved her in The Warrior's Husband. One infamous review, by Dorothy Parker, said Hepburn "ran the gamut of emotions — from A to B."

By 1937 Hepburn, then a bona fide acting success, was self-deprecating (and canny) enough to include a line from The Lake in her successful movie Stage Door that became one of her signature catchphrases: The callalilies are in bloom again, such a strange flower, suitable to any occasion...