REVIEW: ‘By the Way, Meet Vera Stark’ mocks racial identity

Pulitzer-winner Lynn Nottage looks satirically at vintage Hollywood attitudes

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

Playwright Lynn Nottage won a Pulitzer Prize for her Mother Courage-in-modern-Africa drama “Ruined” and acclaim for other serious-minded works like “Intimate Apparel” and “Mud, River, Stone.”

So it’s a surprise — and a pleasure — to discover the playwright aiming for laughs with her latest play, “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” which premiered Monday at Second Stage Theatre.

What’s more, Nottage’s new comedy about 1930s Hollywood not only provokes considerable laughter but also succeeds, for the most part, as a clever study in illusive racial identity.

An attractive African-American, Vera works as a maid for Gloria, a glamorous movie star on the rise. But as Vera cues her flighty employer in preparation for a possible leading role in “The Belle of New Orleans,” an epic of the Old South, it appears that the young women share much closer bonds.

As the early ‘30s story progresses – Vera angles to grab another plum role in the same movie – we meet several African-Americans who pass themselves off as someone other than who they really are.

The play’s second act is set in 2003 during a symposium where the cinema classic “The Belle of New Orleans” is screened and Vera’s controversial Hollywood career is debated by a trio of African-American panelists who view long-lost footage from a 1970s TV talk show that reunited Vera and Gloria.

An amusing consideration of the stereotypes imposed upon African-American artists, the topic probably would be served better were it composed as a novel. (Would it work as a musical?) Here, time and narrative constraints keep the second act too sketchy to satisfy the complex issues and history that Nottage raises. Still, the 1970s sequence proves to be a poignant encounter and the showboating panelists of 2003 are funny as they speculate upon Vera’s mysterious later years.

While the play finally does not add up – and the 1930s-era dialogue sounds a tad too contemporary in flavor – director Jo Bonney gives an expert gloss to the piece with the help of an animated company. Elegant even in Vera’s bum times, Sanaa Lathan assuredly plays a calm, sensible woman who reluctantly reinvents herself. Stephanie J. Block’s self-dramatizing Gloria is forever on the verge of the vapors.

Depicting a musician, a movie maven, a bogus Brazilian beauty, a lesbian poet-critic, a mogul, a TV host, a Russian director and a ‘70s rocker, Daniel Breaker, Karen Olivo, David Garrison and Kevin Isola nimbly enact contrasting people. Kimberly Hebert Gregory is especially winning as a grumpy trouper whose ears prick up when she hears about upcoming casting for the Southern epic and eagerly exclaims, “Slaves – with lines?” Then soulfully lights into “Let My People Go.”

Designer Neil Patel’s shifting sets comment upon Hollywood’s counterfeit facades. Directed by Tony Gerber and filmed in sepia shades to emulate a 1930s flick, the uplifting conclusion of “The Belle of New Orleans” – the clip is screened as act two begins – unfortunately does not achieve the sincere effect its makers probably intend. By that time the audience is so accustomed to laughing that they greet its vintage sentiments with guffaws.

In spite of the show’s flaws, this thoughtful comedy is mostly enjoyable and it’s swell to see a gifted writer like Nottage romp so creatively in a lighter than usual mood.

“By the Way, Meet Vera Stark” continues through May 29 at Second Stage Theatre, 307 W. 43rd St., New York. Call (212) 246-4422 or visit www.2st.com.